Adam & Eve

 Funny how we are about relationships, especially romantic relationships.  It's commonly understood that these attractions are mysterious and defy analysis of any kind.  We just "know" we've found "the one."  I guess we don't know jack-shit based on all of the divorces and bad break-ups out there.  But the funny thing is that when a relationship goes south we want to analyze the shit out of it.  What happened?  Who's at fault?  Why couldn't we work it out?  Maybe if we spent as much time on these issues before we get involved with someone we'd see how painfully obvious the answers are.

I believe aliens have visited the earth.  I believe they've never revealed themselves because they look around for a minute, roll their eyes and say "Oh, brother," and fly right back out of here.  They see people walking behind dogs and picking up their feces.  They assume the dogs are running things.  Imagine how disappointed they are when they find out the feces-gatherers are the ones in charge.

I've come to believe that one of the keys to a successful relationship is a high tolerance for boredom.  We're all in when everything is exciting and new and challenging but eventually all that stuff that we overlooked or thought was cute early on starts to irritate.  I'll tell you - when I'm describing a crucial fourth down blitz to SuperK I can see her eyes glaze over immediately but she hangs in there.  I'm probably as transparent when she's giving me a blow by blow of her approach shot on the fifth hole.  Both of us think: "This is important to him/her so I'm going to listen."  I'll tell you it can be harder than it sounds.

This is the real story behind Adam and Eve.  They weren't lacking in faith.  They were bored.  I'm sure Eve woke up one day and saw the lumpy, farting, hairy naked body of Adam and thought: "You again?  How 'bout some of that apple?"

Don't Ever Change Anything . . . Ever.

 More from the good doctor . . .  

"We live in a society that is risk adverse.  Enormous time and energy is devoted to promoting safety in all we do.  It's often hard to sell unhappy alcoholics on the idea of taking the chance necessary to alter attitudes and behaviors that play a role in their chronic discouragement.  Every decision is measured against the probability that it will increase or decrease anxiety.  To the degree that one's choices become constrained by a need for anxiety avoidance, one's life shrinks.  As this happens, the anxiety is reinforced and soon the sufferers become fearful, not of anything external, but of anxiety itself."

In layman's terms - an alcoholic would rather sit in his own shit than get up and move.  A while ago I was on the losing end of yet another group conscience.  This no longer puzzles me as I'm the dude always looking to change something and I'm aware that most people loathe change.  A Canadian friend of mine, in his typically understated manner, remarked: "So I guess the lesson is don't ever change anything ever."

I get it.  I'm not being chased by tigers or enemy soldiers or gang members.  My house is snug and secure.  I have access to doctors and dentists and bankers and counselors who can help me navigate through any of the minor difficulties that come my way.  So my anxiety-prone brain makes stuff up.  Half the time I don't even know what I'm anxious about.  If I had to walk down a dark alley at night in a dangerous neighborhood to get to my house I wouldn't be anxious - I'd be afraid, and rightly so.  But most of the time I'm worrying about things that I know intellectually aren't important or - worse yet - I don't even know what I'm nervous about.  There's just a film of vague dread covering everything.  This is the worst, this sense of Impending Doom.

So we're getting ready for another long trip into uncharted territory so I'm getting keyed up.  I'm almost positive that nothing bad is going to happen and I am positive that if it does I'll handle it.  If I had to name them most of the things I'm concerned about aren't important and are easily overcome.  But . . . still.  Newness. The lack of control that comes with a journey to a new place.  The loss of comfort that comes with leaving familiar things behind.  I'm still going to do it.  I have enough muscle memory left of how great I feel after I've overcome the unknown. 

The Same Stuff, Again and Again

 Today's meeting was sort of a Greatest Hits for Seaweed kind of meeting.  It nudged my memory on a number of topics.  To recap:

1.  Painful stuff is going to happen.  Deal with it.  Learn from it.  The lessons will be invaluable and the messages may not be revealed until later. 

2.  Quit running from, hiding from, avoiding, and denying painful stuff.  You aren't special.  You will be tested.

3.  Restraint of tongue and pen and social posting.  My tendency is to find the source of the painful stuff and attack it.  There is no better way of making the painful stuff more painful than running my mouth, my pen, and clicking on my keyboard.

4.  Painful stuff is going to happen.  Wait . . . I already forgot that I said that.

5.  One Day at a Time, One Minute at a Time, One Action at a Time.  All of these little steps add up to a long journey.  Each day  I stay sober I'm a little stronger, each time I act in kindness and understanding instead of anger and resentment I'm a little kinder and more understanding and a little less angry and resentful.

6.  I'm the one with The Program.  I have access to the literature, the meetings, the people, and decades of accumulated experience, strength, and hope, and I still act like an asshole half the time.  I put hours and hours each week into recovery and spiritually and I'm still 50% jerk.  So when I run into someone or something I find intolerable it's going to be my responsibility to be the bigger dude.  No more tit for tat.  

I Am Not Old!

 More from Dr. Gordon Livingston . . . 

"The problems of the elderly are frequently serious but seldom interesting.  What the elderly fear is their own demise, and indications of aging are simply unwanted reminders of our mortality.  This is the cosmic joke.  Fate or God or whoever is running this show appears to have said, 'I will give you dominion over all other forms of life.  BUT you will be the only species able to complete your death.'"

I often think of our beloved cat at the very end.  This animal who never went outside and who loathed water just walked out the door and strolled slowly down to the small pond at the end of the street and waded into the water where she looked at her own reflection for a while.  Then she climbed back onto the bank and flopped down and refused to move.  She didn't complain or worry about it - she simply knew that it was all over.  "I think I'm done here," she seemed to be saying.

"Our senior citizens sometimes appear to exist in order to annoy everyone else with their slowness and physical complaints.  The idea that the elderly have anything to give the young in the way of wisdom and life experience is seldom considered.  The reason: most old people are preoccupied with self-centered complaints.  I am of the opinion that the old have a duty to suffer the losses of age with as much grace and determination as they can muster and to avoid inflicting their discomforts on those who love them."

Quit bitching.  Quit complaining.  You've probably got it good.  No one wants to listen to you bitch.

"Many old people report the feeling of invisibility experienced by other minorities.  This takes the form of being ignored in stores by salespeople, seeing few desirable reflections of themselves in popular culture, and above all, no longer being treated as if they have anything useful to say."

I think often of how cultures used to be oriented around the wisdom of The Elders.  It wasn't the young and strong who had the final say in many matters.  The young and strong deferred.  Another blessing of The Program is that those of us who are no longer young are often seen at time-tested carriers of The Message.  We have a wisdom that transcends knowledge by including experience.  You can beef up your knowledge but the School of Hard Knocks is going to deliver the experience.  We also get to hang around with people who are younger than us, sometimes a lot younger.  This is good and healthy for the elderly and for the youth.  Don't hang around with people who look like you!  

"Perhaps our final obligation is to sustain the physical and psychological blows that accompany our aging with a dignity that eschews self-pity.  If we can retain our good humor and interest in others even as the curtain closes, we will have contributed something of inestimable value to those who survive us.  We will have thereby fulfilled our final obligation to them and expressed our gratitude for the gift of life that we, undeserved, have been given and that we have enjoyed for so long."

SuperK gets annoyed at me from time to time when I mention the aging process.  Part of this is a lazy habit; part is the result of being raised by a woman who was unreasonably obsessed with danger and illness.  I was taught to worry that something bad was going to happen.  While it's okay to be aware of adverse consequences this mindset can be a bridge too far.  I don't live my life like I'm afraid of everything but sometimes I talk that way.  There isn't anything too stupid that it can't be absorbed into my subconscious by repeating it over and over, with great seriousness.

Two Bowling Balls

 One of my A.A. sisters who I see infrequently showed up at Keep It Complicated a few days ago.  She normally attends meetings later in the day so I don't get to see her much but it was obvious that she had shed a significant amount of weight.  She is never going to be thin but she was clearly carrying weight that wasn't going to do her health any good in the long run.  Because I have no filter between my brain and mouth but also because I've learned to look before I leap I asked if she had lost some weight.  I wouldn't do this to anyone but this woman is a friend.  We have to be careful commenting on a person's appearance - there's a fine line to walk between a compliment and an insult.  "Your hair looks great styled like that" can mean your hair looks great or your hair used to look like shit.  I told a woman one morning that she looked tired.  "You mean I look terrible?" she said.

Anyway, my friend said that she had lost 35 pounds.  Wow.  That is not easy to do.  I often use the analogy of the sixteen pound bowling ball.

"You were walking around with two bowling balls strapped to your back."  That kind of extra weight can't be easy on the knees, legs, ankles, and back.  It makes me think about how generally obsessive-compulsive many of us are - if it makes us feel better or different we stuff it in our mouths or smoke it or stick it in our arms.  It can be hard quitting some of these behaviors even after we quit drinking.  While I rarely have drinking/using dreams I will wake up from time to time from a vivid image of smoking a cigarette.  The other facet of this behavior is that we have spent so much time thinking poorly of ourselves that we have thrown in the towel; it's as if we don't think we're worth it.  I used to keep all my nice clothes ("all" being a relative word here) in the back of the closet.  I'd never wear them.  I was saving them for "good," whatever that meant.  Some of this stuff was way off in the  size department by the time I got around to wearing them.

Time Takes Time

 An unfortunate fact of recovery is that we have to talk about our problems and failures and that overcoming them is a painfully slow process.  It's a slog.  We've spent so much time bullshitting everyone in our lives (to less effect than we imagine) and ourselves (to a much more damaging degree than we care to admit) that we can often no longer tell the difference between the facts and the . . . well . . . the bullshit.  I used to tell stories in sobriety that I'm not sure were even true - I had spread these fabrications for so long that I believed them.  "Hmmm," I thought, after one particularly implausible anecdote.  "I don't think I ever did that."   The only wise move on my part was to restrict these lies, for the most part, to stuff that couldn't easily be checked up on.  I would not, for instance, tout my field goal percentage over a long NFL career.

My buddy LSD Jack has been feeling uncomfortable lately.  Disconnected, but not disconnected to mention often how long he's been sober using a definition of "sober" that most of us would shake our heads at.  I have stopped trying to explain that using a little cocaine now and again - little "bump" before he calls it - isn't a true definition of sobriety.  Today I just remind him that when I'm feeling off I usually find that I'm behaving in a way that makes me uncomfortable.  I have another friend who recently admitted that he had been using a CBD oil and that this had led him to some kind of THC product.  "I'm not sure I'm really sober," he said in a meeting.

I am responsible for most of what happens to me.  Not very  much happens to me that I didn't cause and most of my motivations and habits patterns are obscured from my conscious self - I'm usually operating on autopilot.  Past behavior is the most reliable predictor of future behavior.  We keep doing what we've been doing and why is this?  Autopilot.  

It's That Goddam Quiet Time, Again

Want: A desire to possess something.                                                                                                             Need: Require something because it's essential or very important.

Because I'm such a congenitally ungrateful person I have a canned gratitude list that I repeat each and every morning.  I try to pay attention to what I'm saying so that I really am grateful for everything that I have.  I confess to asking for a few things in a totally selfish "I hope I get everything I want" kind of way while hedging my bets by adding that crucial qualifier "your will be done."  I don't believe my Higher Power is too annoyed when I ask for something that will make my life more comfortable and less painful.  I feel like a 5 year old asking his dad for a bunch of expensive, dangerous, unrealistic gifts for Christmas.  Dad doesn't mind but he's not going to get everything on that list.  I also remind myself that I always get what I need and not what I want.  I'm taken care of that way but it can be pretty irritating.

The two areas that are amusing me the most at the moment are the gratitude I feel (should feel, sometimes) for my extended family and for the friends I have in my life (have had in my life).  I think most of us come into The Program with the feeling that we've been raised by psycho asshole sociopaths when the fact of the matter is that most of us have had a reasonable upbringing, more or less.  There are some difficult stories of really awful circumstances, no doubt, but most of us are just trying to blame someone/something else for our lousy behavior.  Today I just say"thanks for everything you did" while trying to imagine the faces - the smiling faces - of all  the people that raised me.  I turned out okay so they didn't do the shitty job that I once imagined.

Same with my friends.  When I strike up friendships - whether they have lasted for years or are relatively new or are deep, abiding relationships or more of the kind that were it not for A.A. there wouldn't be much of a connection I try to hang onto and maintain these connections.  The great Keep It Complicated schism really exacerbated my efforts to control everything.  There are people I don't see any more.  There are also people who have drifted from The Program or who have moved away or have chosen to attend a totally different set of meetings.  I'm sort of unusual in that I use the phone and email to stay in touch with folks from all over the place and I'm much more aggressive about this than they are.  So what happens from time to time?  I get my feelings hurt.  I find myself ticked off at people I love and care about because I'm reaching out and they're not, forgetting that maybe, just maybe, I'm not as fascinating to them as I imagine.  Today I say "thanks for all the people who have come in and out of my life over the years."  This helps me to be appreciative of all of these amazing connections I've had.  Some are very active, some reignite quickly when we connect even after a long period of time, some stay strong even over long distances, some reveal themselves as fairly shallow when time or circumstances remove the individual from my life.

I say this: All Good.

It's NOT My Fault

 It is human to shift blame for our failures and our parents come in for an over-sized share as do our spouses and bosses and siblings but it's a fact that we really wail on our parents.  It's easier to blame them - flawed human beings, after all, who were doing the best they could with the tools they had at the time and let's not forget we weren't the easiest kids to manage.  So we get frustrated with the slowness with which productive change actually takes place for slowness is a concept that does not play well in our impatient society.  We're looking for solutions that are quick and easy to difficult, intractable problems - creams and pills and plastic surgery and fat reduction and the list is endless and most of it doesn't require much actual work.  One would think we're in an orgy of self-improvement and yet the new people I talk to - the ones who are brave enough to admit that they drink too much and that they need help to stop - are pretty much doing the same things that they did yesterday and last week and last year, with pretty much the same results.  We have become used to the idea that much of what we don't like about ourselves and our lives can be quickly overcome with little effort on our part.

If you keep doing what you've been doing you're going to keep getting what you've always got.

We can usually discern whether a new person has a real interest in getting sober or whether they merely wish they could stop drinking.  Alteration of long-standing attitudes and behaviors is a slow process - change is incremental.  We live in a society that has elevated complaint to a primary form of public discourse.  The media and the courts are full of victims of this and that - a bad upbringing, mistakes of others, lack of good opportunities, random misfortune.  Voluntary behaviors have been reclassified as illness so that sufferers can be pitied.  I've always liked the difference between empathy - an understanding of the pain of another - and sympathy - feeling sorry for the circumstances and troubles of another.  I get a lot of empathy in Alcoholics Anonymous and not much sympathy.  For my problems are of my own making.

Many of us mistake thoughts, wishes, and intentions for actual change.  This confusion between words and actions clouds the recovery process.  Confession - our Fourth Step - is good for the soul, but unless it's accompanied by altered behavior, it remains only words in the air.  I learned quickly and early on that my expressions of intent were listened to and then ignored - the only currency that meant anything in The Rooms was behavior.  The disconnect between what an alcoholic says and what the alcoholic is willing to do is not simply a measure of hypocrisy because we usually believe our statements to be of good intent.  We simply pay too much attention to words - our own and those of others - and not enough to the actions that really define us.  

We want to want to get sober.  In my earliest days I went to one meeting a week.  Yeah, I didn't stay sober.  My jaw dropped when someone asked me what meeting I was going to the next day.  The next day?  The next day?  Two days in a row?

Control

There are certain personality characteristics that are highly correlated with academic and professional success: dedication to work, attention to detail, ability to manage, time, conscientiousness.  People who have this constellation of grants are generally excellent students and productive workers.  They can also be difficult to live with.  In one's personal life, the keeping of lists, perfectionistic attitudes, devotion to effort over pleasure and friendships, lack of flexibility, and stubbornness do not wear as well and tend to alienate those who value, closeness, relaxation, and tolerance.  Obsessive people put a strong emphasis on control.  Anything that threatens this sense of being in charge induces anxiety.  This leads inevitably to efforts to reassert control, in effect redoubling the behaviors that produced the problem in the first place.

Paradox:  A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.

Impermanence mocks us.  Everything in life is a good news/bad news story.  Only in embracing our own mortality and the fact that life is going to contain both pain and pleasure can we be happy.

There is not a doubt in the world that I want to control everything.  If only things would work out the way I want everybody would be happy.  If you'd like just turn the reins of your life over to me.  I'll take care of you.  Just look at how smooth my life has gone if you have any doubts.

More Stuff From Epicurus

Epicurus observed that people in modern society ran in circles, unaware of the source of their unhappiness: "Everywhere you can find men who live for empty desires and have no interest in the good life. Stupid fools are those who are never satisfied with what they possess, but only lament what they cannot have."  And one can certainly hear echoes of Buddhism in his prescription for the soul: “The disturbance of the soul cannot be ended nor true joy created either by the possession of the greatest wealth or by honor and respect in the eyes of the mob or by anything else that is associated with causes of unlimited desire."

First of all, these quotes are in a book I'm reading.  I don't want you to think I'm spending a lot of time reading influential 4th Century BC Greek philosophers to kill time during commercial breaks of reality TV shows.  My curiosity is always stimulated when I find yet another source of the wisdom that we are so fortunate to have found in Alcoholics Anonymous.  This wisdom was written down 25 centuries ago and was influenced by an Eastern philosophy that is even older yet.  Once again we see the idea that a life dedicated to making the lives of others better is the best life we can live.  I note again the word "others."  I'm always looking for something outside of myself to fix what ails me.  As you can see, it doesn't exist.

Take A Chance

 Ask someone this question: "What is the biggest chance you've ever taken?"  Pay attention to the look on their faces as they ponder the question.  People begin to realize what safe lives they have chosen to lead.  The ways that people test themselves - contact sports, backpacking through Asia, military service - are foreign to most.  Something is lost in our obsessive concern with safety and security - some spirit of adventure.  Life is a gamble in which we don't get to deal the cards, but are nevertheless obligated to play them to the best of our ability.

Control is a popular illusion closely related to the pursuit of perfection.  We all know people who are perfectionistic.  They tend to be demanding of themselves and those around them and to manifest an obsessive orderliness that is, in the end, alienating.  They do not trust feelings and prefer to occupy themselves with things that they can count.  Our capitalist system is founded on competition; our legal system thrives on conflict and the pursuit of self-interest.

When I was about four months sober the company I was working for - or rather employed by because I wasn't getting too much accomplished in the work arena - asked me to move to Chicago.  I did not want to do this so I devoted a huge amount of time and effort to finding another job in Indianapolis, an amount so large that I would have been promoted if I had devoted as much time to working as to whatever it was that I was doing.  Honestly, I believe today that they expected me to just quit but I was too dense to see that.  I bitched and bitched and bitched until my sponsor finally said, exasperated: "If you don't like it you can just move back."

Huh.  In Chicago I met SuperK, got heavily involved with some real doctrinaire A.A., and finally segued into the world of industrial sales, a world tailored to my talents and interests.  I simply wouldn't have done this if I had stayed put.  It was painful and traumatic making the move but it was in my best interest.  Not what I wanted but what I needed.

Hey, Man, Nice Shot

 
"An unexamined life is not worth living."  Socrates

See?  In 500 B.C. Socrates saw that the Fourth Step was going to be crucial for alcoholics.  And Freud's major contribution to psychology was the theory of the unconscious mind, functioning below the level of our awareness and influencing our behavior.  This leads to the belief that to change habitual and maladaptive patterns of behavior requires first some recognition of the pattern.  People (I.E, alcoholics) tend to resist this, preferring to invoke coincidence or simply focus on individual events in a way that places responsibility on others.

We do not like to look at ourselves.  Especially when we're behaving badly.

In California the service position of group secretary is a year commitment.  In the Midwest each member ran a meeting for a month (OH, IN) or three months (IL).  I intuitively understand the rationale behind both: the former is a way to require a newer member to show up every week for an entire year while the latter allows many different members to be of service.  Here in CA getting a secretary appointed is a major fucking event because not a lot of people can/want to commit to a year of always attending the same meeting if by "people" you mean "me/myself/and I."

Our Monday position is currently open and nobody is stepping up.  I'm getting needled in a good-natured way to take the commitment.  To this I say: "Needle me to death 'cause I'm not doing it."  I just don't want to have to come to the same meeting every week for that long.  I was always under the impression that the main idea behind a service position was to manipulate new/newer people into the position where they were thrown into the middle of things.  I don't like to point out that I've been sober for so long but I don't need a service commitment to ensure I get to enough meetings.  My service position is I'm going to a lot of 7 AM meetings.  I don't see too many other people with that much time getting up at 5 AM when they don't have to.  If this sounds arrogant I say Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, but I'm still not getting up at 4:30 AM so that I can open up a meeting.

One of my friends - who obviously wanted to say the following to me so acutely that he looked hard and far and wide for something said in the meeting to reference -  told me this morning: "There's a guy who doesn't have a commitment."  I'm the guy.  He was talking about me.  I laughed.  I don't care.  I'm still not doing the meeting.  I will, however, take a good, long look at my insides to make sure I'm not avoiding something that I need to do.

No, I Said

From my current morning meditation book . . . 

"Honesty does not always mean telling the truth.  Honesty can also mean knowing our limitations so we don't make promises we can't keep.  It can mean letting our actions support our statements.  Dishonesty may be a quick fix at that moment, but it will never provide a solid foundation for the future.  Instead we can try to be more honest with our abilities and limitations."

I am still surprised at how often I want to turn to a falsehood when I'm faced with a situation that requires me to admit to a limitation or that risks hurting someone's feelings or makes me look smaller and stupider.  I don't want to be brutally honest in a way that damages someone or reveals something about myself that's best left hidden but still I've found that honesty really is the best policy.  I can count on one hand the times I've gotten in trouble telling the truth and I can count on the other hand - if that hand had like a million fingers - how many times lying has burned me.

For instance, if someone asks if I want to join them for breakfast and I'm not crazy about this person or, more likely, I just want to do something else - my tendency is to make up a kind lie.  "I have this going on or that appointment to keep."  Then I risk being asked later on how that thing went and having to compound the lie.  When I was drinking I had a network of lies supported by a larger network of auxiliary lies all embedded in a big ball of lies.  I was so confused about what I had said to what person I didn't know what the fuck I said I had done most of the time.  Frankly, it was exhausting.   And there's nothing worse than getting caught in a lie.  Half the time I tell the truth just because I don't want to be discovered as a liar later on and not because I don't like lying or am not good at lying.  Like most good liars I have to practice a lot if I want to keep up with my craft.  I'm still scouring the want ads for something along the lines of: "Good liar wanted.  $400,000 salary per annum."  I'd come out of retirement for that son of a bitch.

Today I'm likely to reply: "I'm sorry but I can't make it this morning.  Thanks for asking, though, and let's try it another time."  I used to be worried that I would be asked a follow-up question but they rarely come and when they do I can simply say: "I've got a full schedule today" or something  like that.  I don't  owe someone a big explanation about every last little thing.  "No" is a complete sentence.  I also believe that if we're untruthful to the world at large then we're going to have a tendency to bullshit ourselves.  I have a friend - LSD Tom - who hasn't been honest with the group about his belief that occasional drug use doesn't mean he isn't sober.  Maybe he's right.  I suggested that he bring it up as a topic at one is his regular meetings but I don't think he has done so.  Now he says he doesn't feel great but he's having trouble sharing what's going on.  I bet he is.  I bet he's not telling the truth about some other things, too.  It eats at us, this dishonesty.

Release It All

"So, practicing these Steps, we had a spiritual awakening about which fi nally there was no question. Looking at those who were only beginning and still doubted themselves, the rest of us were able to see the change setting in."  P. 109 12&12

One of the blessings I've received in A.A. is being witness to the tremendous change I get to see in people who sober up, stay sobered up, and work a spiritual Program.  When I compliment these people on the change in outlook and attitude that I see they're frequently taken aback.  I like the idea that we can only perceive change in ourselves slowly even though it may be obvious to people who are observing us as we grow.  And I think that there are various stages of growth many of us go through and - while these aren't hard and fast rules - often they occur after a certain number of months or years.  I believe in my case it took a few years before I was comfortable not drinking all of the time; that it took five years before I finally grasped my own personal concept of a Higher Power; and L was a good ten years in before I got to be finally, finally comfortable with who I am.  No more games or lying or people pleasing, just the unvarnished Stevie Seaweed, for better or worse.

The man who led this morning was very casual about recovery when he joined A.A. seven years ago - he showed up late, always shared for a long time after looking at his cell phone while others were talking, and then left early.  God forbid you suggest he do something he didn't want to do.  Today he was clearly speaking from a different space.  We can tell a spiritual awakening when we see it.  There was a man there who ended a dysfunctional relationship - this 15 years or so sober - and he was a changed man overnight: lighter, more relaxed, calmer.  There was a lady there who makes spandex seem like a relaxed-fit fabric and who has recently really started loosening her grip on herself and other people and life, for God's sake.

Very enjoyable.

$60 for a $100 Service

 I've always been fascinated - flummoxed, really - by the concept of selfless service to others.  It makes sense as a theoretical concept.  I can see how people would admire someone who's thinking about others more so than thinking of oneself but to put this into practice?  In the real world?  With other people?  Irritating, obnoxious, intolerable other people?  Whew.  That's a lift, a stretch.

I'm probably emphasizing money too much as I write about my attempts to be more selfless but it's such a relatable, tangible asset that it makes it easy to quantify.  SuperK and I finally replaced an old mattress.  A couple of Hispanic kids brought this super-heavy item to our house.  If I would have paid the company $100 they were obligated to open the cardboard box, drop the mattress right on the box springs, and remove the refuse from our property.  I balked at the $100.  The bedroom is literally 10 steps from the front door and it's all on one level.

"Anyway, can I talk you guys into bringing the mattress into the bedroom?  Right there, that room right there?"

They explained that since I hadn't ordered the Red Gold Service they weren't supposed to do that.

"How about I kick you guys $20 apiece?  I'd rather give you the money than the company?"

"$20 for each of us?"  one of them asked.

"Yeah, we can do that." the other one said.  "We'll even take the garbage away."

They then introduced themselves and started calling me Mr. Steve.  I enjoyed the sense of well-being so much I handed the first kid another $20 when they were leaving.  "Make sure this dude splits this with you," I said to Dude #2, needling Dude #1.  "He looks kind of sketchy to me."

The way I choose to look at this is that a $100 service cost me $60 and it went right to two kids who really appreciated the extra money.  They're going to spend it on food and rent and gas and not on stock buy-backs or larger dividends for shareholders.  I bet this was a topic of conversation with their wives or girlfriends.  "Hey, dude gave me an extra $30."  They're lucky to be making $15/hour so this was like an extra two hours of work that took them all of five minutes.

The point is that I can't develop self-esteem by thinking estimable thoughts.  You can't think your way into good action but you can act your way into good thinking.  And - to repeat myself - it isn't the amount of money so much as the act of giving away something that I could have kept for myself.  Some of us can't afford a $20 tip and that's okay.  Give your time or your energy if you don't have any extra cash.  My life today is going to proceed exactly the same way as it would if I had that $60 back except that I'm going to feel great about myself.

So Oscar and John (Juan, actually, but he dumbed it down for me), enjoy your money.

Termites!

 From the 12 & 12:

"By now the newcomer has probably arrived at the following conclusions: that his character defects, representing instincts gone astray, have been the primary cause of his drinking and his failure at life.  All these failings generate fear, a soul-searching in it's own right.  Then fear, in turn, generates more character defects.  These fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour the foundations of whatever sort of life we try to build."

I've always liked the simile of termites.  Ceaseless.  Devouring.  Unseen.  Wow.

"But it has from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most.  The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being.  We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society.  This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any one of those about us.  Of true brother hood we had small comprehension."

Primary:  More important than anything else.

I see the word "primary" used a lot.  And we don't come across very well, do we?  We come across as selfish jerks.  Total inability.  There's not a suggestion that we occasionally fall short.  

More Gratitude

 Grateful:  Warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received.

Dude who led the meeting this morning is older and a retread with about a year and a half of sobriety.  It's not hard to see when someone has crossed the line from not drinking to sobriety.  I'm always ruefully shaking my head when I all too often run into those individuals who have a lot of surface sobriety but nothing that has sunk in deep.  I think he's chosen gratitude as the topic the last two times he's led the meeting.  There are always some funny stories when we talk about gratitude.  There are some people who took the elevator down to the basement and then pushed the button for the sub-basement.  I characterized myself as a High Bottom drunk for a while when I was new.  A guy in Chicago pulled me aside one day: "Do you have a wife or a girlfriend or any kids?" (No.)  "Do you have a house or a nice apartment?"  (No.)  "Does anyone in your family like you anymore?" (My MOM likes me, I said defensively.  That doesn't count, he said.)  "Do you have any money?" (Not very much.  Not enough.  Grumble.)  "I've seen the piece of shit car you drive so don't talk to me about your car and all you do in here is complain about your job so I know that isn't going too well."  (Silence.)  "You're not a high bottom drunk.  Why in the hell do you think you're a high bottom drunk?"

There was a guy in Portland who said that in his drinking days he had a Burnside Cadillac.  (Burnside was the main east-west drag there.)  "What's a Burnside Cadillac?" I asked him.   "A shopping cart with all my shit in it," he said.  There was a guy in Cincinnati who talked about living in a condo with a pool.  "I thought you were homeless," I said.  "I lived in a cardboard box on the banks of the Ohio River," he smirked.

A new woman talked about the cop car that often parked outside of the restaurant where she worked about closing time.  Good time to catch an easy drunk, closing time is, and she was grateful  she didn't have to sweat his presence.  I remember when I got my first ticket in sobriety.  I saw those sickening red and blue lights whirring in my rear view mirror and my stomach clenched in fear until I thought: "I'm clean and sober and don't have any drugs or drug residue or open containers in my car and there aren't ten empties rattling around under the passenger seat.  I have a valid registration and I'm not driving on a suspended license and the car's insured and it's really in good working shape."  So I got a ticket for speeding.  The patrolman was quite nice and his radar clocked me at the speed I had my cruise control set for so I could hardly bitch about the ticket.  He took a minute to explain to me that they were targeting this stretch of highway (he even had a sort of cop flyer printed up) because they had had a few bad accidents where cars crossed the median and drove into the opposing traffic at highway speed which seemed reasonable and responsible and more than fair.  I'm not saying I was glad to get a ticket but I was speeding, you know?  I could have driven the speed limit and not gotten a ticket.

Feeling Bad? Take a Pill!

 One of the things that has kept surprising me over the years is how so many of the basic Alcoholics Anonymous principles and habits and practices surface when I read outside, non AA approved literature.  Some of the stuff is religious and some philosophical and medical and it's new and it's old and sometimes ancient but there are some core truths that I see over and over again.  

Here are a few thoughts about we can duck responsibility for bad behavior from time to time by relying on "outside" influences -  written by a psychiatrist by the name of Gordon Livingston - that struck me the other day:

"A currently more common example of a diagnostic fad is adult Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).  Disorganized, day-dreaming procrastinators now have a medical explanation for their inattention AND an effective treatment: stimulant drugs.   People uniformly report that their spirits are better and that they can get more done when taking an amphetamine.  To which I can only reply: 'Me, too.'  We have created a plethora of diagnoses that are really just descriptions of certain patterns of behavior.  The term 'disabled' removes not only any sense of responsibility for overcoming one's problems, it damages irrevocably the self-respect that comes with the sense of being a free person on the earth, able to struggle with and overcome adversity."

I need to point out here that Dr. Livingston goes to great lengths to emphasize that there are plenty of people who suffer from real mental or behavioral problems - some of them caused by events in their past and some by their physiological makeup - who need and are helped by medical intervention.  It's dangerous and to no one's credit to urge a paranoid schizophrenic to stop taking his or her medication.  But there is surely some truth in his contention that it's a lot easier to blame other people, places, and things for our problems and decide that pills are the solution.  I mean, I take pills and they've made a huge difference in my life so this isn't an anti-medication screed.

Some more: "It is our determination to overcome fear and discouragement that constitutes the only effective antidote to the sense of powerlessness over unwanted feelings.  Some people are obviously more genetically predisposed to suffer these discomforts than others.  While medication can provide crucial, sometimes life-saving relief, people also have an obligation to alter their behavior in ways that allow them to exert greater control over their lives.   This is why there is a fine line between expressing empathy and solidarity for those who suffer and endorsing a passive dependency."

It seems to me that this is a wordy way to say: "It's not them - it's you."  I have personally found that my moral fiber and peace of mind increase when I soldier through a difficulty without any outside help.  There's a lot of satisfaction in overcoming something by working hard and smart.  It's how most of us got sober, after all - with help from others but also by buckling down and doing the work.