Good V Bad - Pleasure V Pain

SuperK and I drove to the airport a couple of days ago to get on a plane to travel to the Mediterranean for a cruise and some time in Greece.  I misread or misunderstood or misinterpreted the passport requirements for this country and heard this from the gate agent: "I'm sorry - I can't let you on this plane."  We scrambled and hustled and threw Hail Marys all to no avail.  We couldn't get mad at anyone because it was our own fault and we couldn't ask for an exception because this was a diplomatic issue - even if the agent let us on the plane the customs officials on the other end wouldn't have let us enter the country.  Compounding the fuck-up was the fact that a significant portion of the trip was non-refundable and therefore forfeited.

All of this makes me reflect on the idea that life inevitably has its good moments and bad moments although I categorize them as pleasant moments and painful moments.  This is a nod to the inevitability of pain and pleasure in life and it takes out the moral component.  I'm not rewarded for being a good person and I'm not punished for being a bad person; at least it isn't a one-to-one equivalency.  My life does run more smoothly and is more joyful when I'm behaving well but that doesn't give me an exemption for shit happing that I don't like.  The religious phrase is that "God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust."

The lessons here are unclear at the moment.  I'm still too agitated and emotionally involved.  I do have the benefit of some hard-earned wisdom that allows me to look back on my life and see how pain led to pleasure and vice-versa.  I was on a fast track to being a doctor of optometry when my escalating drug and alcohol use blew me into the weeds.  Disaster, right?  I segued into a line of work that gave me a great deal of freedom and the ability to manage my own time and I think I made as much money as a lot of optometrists, professionals who have forced into a manner of doing business that is no longer attractive to me, having changed so much from when I was young.  When I temporarily got a career going while still using the drugs and alcohol scuttled this avenue and I was demoted and humiliated and forced to move to Chicago where I met the ethereal SuperK.  Today I can see serendipity whereas while I was going through these disasters I could only see doom.

I talk about my own personal recovery slogans.  Here's another good one: "I don't know shit."

%@&!!

 Sunk Cost Fallacy:  The phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.

I am responsible for most of what happens to me.

I've learned that when someone is suffering through a painful experience it's not helpful to offer platitudes like "this must be God's will."  There are a lot of truths in life that can be hurtful to someone who is going through a bad spell.  I use it sparingly.  Also, the idea that I'm getting what I need when I'm getting clobbered is another aphorism that needn't be shared immediately, especially when I'm not getting what I want.  These are kind of big ideas that work best when I'm preparing for what life has to offer and not during the moment of crisis.

Insurance is a ripoff.  

I screamed "Fuck!" into a pillow today.  It felt surprisingly good.  It was also surprising at how well  the pillow muffled the obscenity.  I think I could walk around the neighborhood screaming "Fuck!" into a pillow with relative immunity.

Isn't there a parable about some dude who suffered increasingly severe insults to his person throughout the course of the day after being mildly irritated at his cat first thing in the morning?  "Should of kicked the cat" or something along those lines?

Kick the fucking cat!

I wonder how the cat feels about that.  I bet my cat would scratch my eyes out overnight if I kicked her.

I had some bad news yesterday.  It was one of those pieces of bad news that could only happen when several lapses and screw-ups follow each other again and again.  Where you're left thinking: "None of this could have happened if someone had said this or done this halfway through" but no one intervened at any point until the bad thing was over and done with.  One of those.  And, of course, it was a bad thing that ultimately was my fault.  I was the one who made the mistake to start the process so it's kind of irresponsible for me to point the finger at people who might have stopped the bad thing.

Grasping the idea that "I get what I need and it won't be more than I can handle" is great when I'm getting what I want.  It's a disaster when I'm not.  Then I fail to see the wisdom and cannot stand its sanctimony.

I'm always a little sheepish when I ask for what I want . . . even when I'm adding "if it be your will" onto the end like a childish afterthought.

Also, I've always liked the idea that "It's all God's money" when someone else is suffering a financial boo-boo.  When it's my fucking money then God should keep his hands off of it because I might need it. 

Bill W

 Bill likes to emphasize balance . .  . 

"This surely means that we ought to look toward God's Perfection as our guide rather than as a goal to be reached in any foreseeable time.  Perfect humility would be a state of complete freedom from myself.  Perfect humility would be a full willingness in all times and places, to find and to do the will of God.  When I meditate upon such a vision, I need not be dismayed because I shall never attain, it, nor need I swell with presumption that one of these days its virtues shall all be mine.

Bill W likes to emphasize that we grow through difficulty.  Here he's talking about our predilection to whipsaw between self-centered guilt and self-centered arrogance . . . 

"I think we need not regret these conflicts.  They seem to be a necessary part of growing up, emotionally and spiritually."

I'll confirm this: I don't grow for shit when I'm getting my way.  I take credit for getting my way and when I don't get my way, it's someone else's fault.

Right Here - Right Now

 "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do lies clearly at hand."  Thomas Carlyle

I think my mantra for 2023 so far is "Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior."  If I did it yesterday I'm probably going to do it today.  Change is hard.  If I want to change something I need to change it right now.  You know - "I coulda been a contendah!"  And if I want to change something then it's on me; it's not on you.  I take too much guilty pleasure in blaming The Other for my defects and shortcomings.  If I want to be a contender then I better start contending right now.

Bill W has this to say about Honesty . . . 

"Sometimes I would simply have to look at certain situation where, on the face of them, I was doing very badly.  Right away a rousing rebellion would set in.  Then the search for excuses would become frantic.  'These,' I would exclaim, 'are really a good man's faults.'  When that pet gadget finally broke apart, I would think, 'Well, if those people would only treat me right, I wouldn't have to behave the way I do.'  Next in order was this: 'God well knows that I do have awful compulsions.  I just can't get over this one.  So He will have to release me.'  At last came the time when I would shout, ' This, I positively will not do; I won't even try.' "

Bill W would have made an excellent modern politician.  Deny the problem; acknowledge the problem but state flatly that it wasn't that bad of a problem; digg in and blame someone else for behaving in a way that caused the aggrieved party to commit the problem; relying on God to remove the problem because it's just too hard of a problem to solve all by my little self; and then, finally, screaming: "Fuck it!  I like this problem!  I'm keeping this problem!"

Bill admits that "I had exaggerated my modest attainments by pride or I would exaggerate my defects by wallowing in guilt."  This thinking is familiar to most alcoholics: we swing wildly between thinking we're all that to thinking we're pieces of shit.  Both of these mindsets have as their core motivation, often deeply hidden,  a need to draw attention to ourselves.

Or this: "I'm not much but I'm all I think about."

It's Always The First Step

 A new woman shared this morning about having a tough time with visiting family as she was in the midst of working her Third Step.  I like the axiom that whenever you're struggling with a Step you should go back through the immediately preceding Steps until you get to the source of the problem which - in my experience - is almost always Step One.  If I'm still powerless over some aspect of my life I'm going to struggle with the nuances of turning over my will.

Will:  To want or choose; a determination to do something; to try to cause something to happen by using the power of your mind.

Our wills our a god-given gift/curse that makes life worth living/horrible and can be used in wonderful/destructive ways.  

Re: Family?  Family is hard.  Family that drinks is especially hard.  Trying to convince drinking family members that they should mirror your pious, sanctimonious life of sobriety with only a few months under your belt is a fool's errand and doomed to failure, almost certainly.  A newcomer who isn't drinking is probably someone who quit drinking before, if only for a short while, so family members are rolling their eyes at this pronouncements of the beauty of the sober life.  My family installed some of my buttons so they know where they are and how to push them and what happens when they're pushed.  My defects, so well-hidden and artfully managed, ooze to the surface and determine my behavior.

It doesn't always work out with family.  Sometimes a sober life isn't going to fit into the family dynamic.  Sorry about that.  When I drank I was a train wreck but I was a predictable train wreck and could easily be mollified by the presence of alcohol and a bathroom to take whatever drug I was currently taking.

Seaweed's Guidance

 "Most difficult, too, will be the admission that we cannot be certain of receiving God's guidance because our prayers are so cluttered with wishful thinking.  Surely this is the point at which we must seek the counsel of our finest friends.  There is nowhere else to go.  Of course we cannot wholly rely on friends to solve all our difficulties.  A good adviser will never do all our thinking for us.  He knows that each final choice must be ours."  Bill W

We are engaged in an ongoing search for the countless self-deceptions that rule (and sometimes wreck) our lives.  You can't bullshit a bullshitter . . . unless you're the bullshitter.

If we learn to sit with our anger awhile until we are calmer and more rational, we can avoid shameful, regretful results.  If you want to do something stupid then act when you're pissed off.  I guarantee success.

I'm really grooving on the idea that I'm responsible for most of what happens to me but, boy, is it easier to blame something on the outside.

Side B Stuff

 No one is picking on me.  I'm not being singled out for special punishment.  When I get sick it's not because I did something wrong.  People get sick.  People have problems.

One of the things we say in my household when one of us is confronted with a vexatious person is this: "Who has The Program?"  And while it's said in kindness it's still pretty irritating but it's a powerful reminder that I need to hold myself to a higher standard.  If I act petty and in a vindictive fashion I'm no better than the irritating person I'm silently judging.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.  If you did it yesterday you're going to do it today and you're probably going to do it tomorrow.  I need to stop bullshitting myself about the things I need to do that I'm going to start doing and the things I need to stop doing that I'm going to keep doing anyway.  Change is hard.  Change is a bitch.  I'm rather sit in my own shit than get up and move.

I am responsible for most of what happens to me.  I need to quit blaming other people, places, and things for the state I'm in.  The following is a true story unlike most of this crap that I make up . . .  A friend in recovery was complaining to a sponsor about other people when one day his phone call was answered this way: "It's not them - it's you" followed by a click.

Once I hit 40 the statute of limitations on my childhood grievances against my parents ran out.  It was time to take responsibility for the person I was, change what I didn't like, and quit complaining about the past.

I started to thrive in the business world when I finally figured out some things.  I was not the boss - my boss didn't need me telling him/her how to do his/her job better.  Other employees were not my concern.  I was expected to arrive on time and stay until quitting time and  . . . you know . . . actually work when I was there.  I was sort of cheerful.  I mean, a dude can only do so much.

Greatest Hits

 "What we usually ask of God is that two plus two not equal four."  Anonymous

I turn again and again to my Personal Unofficial A.A. Slogans - they sustain and nurture me and keep me out of an astounding amount of trouble when I remember to follow them.

Nobody wants to hear my opinion on anything.  Even when they ask for my opinion they don't want to hear my opinion, really.  I can barely locate my car keys and wallet most of the time so why do I think I can direct your life?

Wear the world like a loose garment.  Relax.  All is well all is well all is well.  We're in this world but we're not of this world.  We're spiritual beings having a human experience so mistakes and conflict are inevitable.

No one is thinking about me and - for sure - no one is doing anything to me.  That guy in the car ahead of me isn't trying to worm his way in front of me, Little Stevie Seaweed, Esquire.  He's just going to work and my car is in his way.  Stop taking everything personally.  Most of the time I let the guy in and I'll tell you it's a hell of a lot less stressful although it does shave like eight seconds off my ETA.

Say as little as possible.  Just try not to talk.  Silence rarely gets me in trouble but my mouth is a problem.  "If people think you're stupid then you can open your mouth and remove all doubt."  The best sponsor advice I ever got was "Just try not to talk today."  I can only imagine how much of an ass I was being to prompt this suggestion.

Love people for who they are and not who you want them to be.  Everybody's fine.  Everybody's OK.  There aren't very many truly bad people out there - most of us are good, decent people trying out best while struggling to overcome some flaws.  Don't concentrate on these flaws in other people - concentrate on your patience and acceptance.  Do I think I never try other people's patience?  Do I think if I self-righteously criticize someone else's shortcomings that this will be helpful to them?  Don't I think I have no flaws?  (Ed. Note: Well, I do think I have no flaws and I'm pretty sure I'm right which is probably a flaw that I need to look into.)

I absolutely cannot change the past.  I have very little ability to control the future.  Clean up my past the best I can and do the loose garment thing with the future.  There's a big difference between planning and control.  Most of the time when someone tells me what to do I do the opposite thing.

Follow spiritual principles and what is a spiritual principle?  Be nice.  Just be nice.  Or, don't be an asshole.  We all witness interactions during the day where we think "wow, that was nice what that guy did" or "wow, what an asshole."  I try to leave everybody I meet feeling better about themselves.

Quit preaching about your own spiritual principles.  No one is listening.

Faith

"Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark."  Sir Rabindranath Tagore 

"The more he looks, the more unconscious self-deception he finds.  And the more astonished he becomes at the elaborate and devious excuse-making machinery by which he had been justifying himself.  His prideful self-righteousness that he was one of the 'good people' can often be just as destructive as the glaring sins of those who are supposedly not so good.  So he daily looks inward upon himself and then upward toward Gpod, the better to discover just where he stands in this matter of honesty."

Talk Is Cheap

I have a dear friend here in SoCal that I have coffee with from time to time.  While we both do a good job of keeping the conversations positive and understanding we will occasionally use the opportunity to talk about this or that person who is irritating the shit out of one of us.  I have this rule about never saying anything about anybody that I wouldn't say with that person standing next to me but all of us need to clean out the pipes from time to time, and I use my sponsor and SuperK and a few trusted friends to air my self-justified grievances.  There really are some irritating people out there or at least a few people that irritate me and it helps a lot to listen to myself making a self-righteous, intolerant speech about some person who fits in fine in the grand scheme of things.

Tom mentioned a woman that we both know and how much he dislikes her.  She does have a grating personality which is exacerbated by a pretty obsessive-compulsive complex.  There is, after all, a lot of mental illness in Alcoholics Anonymous.  I commiserated and we moved on to other things.  Sometime later I found out that he was driving down to her neighborhood and walking with her once a week.  She is a particularly irritating walking partner because she stops every 50 yards to respond to each and every text and email and phone call she gets.  Reminds me of my buddy in Cincinnati who always sat right next to a man who drove him to distraction.  Me?  I prefer to hang out and judge people silently.

There's a lot of truth to the adage of "pay attention to what I do and not to what I say."  Talk is indeed cheap.  And I know too many people who don't live particularly admirable lives but talk a sweet game.

"Love does not consist of gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.  Loving relationships are not made by taking prisoners.  Love is not hypnotism or possessiveness.  Love is simply a sharing between two people."  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Seaweed: Self-Righteous and Vocal About It

 "Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen."

Restraint:  A measure or condition that keeps someone under control or within limits.

On our recent trip one of the perks was that the cruise line included a ride from the airport to the hotel where we would be staying the night before the start of the cruise.  As the airport was situated a long way from the city center this was a nice perk - cab fares were estimated at $150.  I called the office to schedule the transfer.   

"OK, what time does your flight get in?"

"We're going to be at the airport returning a car as we'll have been in Iceland for a couple of weeks already."

"I'm sorry but the transfers are only for people arriving that day."

This made no sense to me.  I was returning the car to the airport so I was going to be at the airport just as if I had flown in that day.  What difference did it make how I got to the airport?

"You understand I'm going to be at the airport?"

"Only for passengers flying in that day."

"OK, I'm flying in that day."  (Rigorous honesty, my ass.)

"What time does your flight arrive?"

"4:30."

"Great.  I need the airline and flight number to coordinate baggage pickup."

D'oh!  Goddammit.

I thanked her for her time - graciously, I might add, so graciously that it was fucking unreal - hung up, and called someone up the food chain who OK'd the transfer.  I was never unpleasant but I was persistent in my efforts to get around a stupid rule.  On the appointed day we dropped off the car and tried to find our transfer vehicle which was nowhere to be found.  I sent a few texts to the customer service department trying to sort things out, was ignored, and fired off this gem as we were getting into a cab: "This is great.  Just great.  A great way to start off our $&%!! vacation."  I did those symbols, too, instead of the graphic and offensive swear words that they were occluding.  Nothing.  Dead air.  Radio silence.

We took the $150 cab to the hotel and by the time we arrived I was reasonably calm.  I missed the $150 but I wasn't going to ruin a day over a mixup costing me an amount of money I could afford.  Plus the kid who drove us was an immigrant from Somali and we enjoyed talking to him.

Life moved on and we boarded the ship.  As we walked into our room a uniformed Brit followed us in, introduced himself as the hotel manager, and apologized for the mix-up.  Profusely.  And directed us to one of the attendants to coordinate putting a $150 credit onto our account.  Mostly, at this point, I was embarrased.  I made a fuss; I was right, which was the justification, poor as it was as a justification; and then I had to eat crow over making a fuss.  It's what I always say about a 9th Step amends - I don't behave well because I especially enjoy behaving well - I simply hate making amends.

Restraint in the Big Book and 12 & 12:

Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint.

Considering this explosive factor, we knew we had to practice self-restraint.

For we can never think or act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic.

In all these situations we need self-restraint etc etc etc.

The way this self-restraint paid off was startling.

So you can see restraint is a recommended practice.  Highly recommended.

Step Four, I Say, Step Four!

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

From the first few pages of Step Four, our searching and thorough inventory, and I'm going to skip around a little here: "Creation gave us instincts for a purpose.  Yet these instincts often far exceed their proper functions.  Powerfully, blindly, many times subtly, they drive us, dominate us, and insist upon ruling our lives.  When thus out of joint man's natural desires cause him great trouble, practically all the trouble there is.  

(Next paragraph.)  "Nearly every serious emotional problem can be seen as a case of misdirected instinct.  When that happens, our great natural assets, the instincts, have turned into physical and mental liabilities."

(Moving on to paragraph three.)  "Danger occurs every time a person imposes his instincts unreasonably on others and unhappiness follows.  This collision of instincts sets us in conflict not only with ourselves, but with other people who have instincts, too."

(And wrapping things up today.)  "Alcoholics especially should be able to see that instinct run wild in themselves is the underlying cause of their destructive drinking.  This perverse soul-sickness is not pleasant to look upon.  Instincts on rampage balk at investigation."

First of all, Instincts on Rampage would be an excellent name for a hard rock band.

I do love how Bill W used forceful words to batter the drunk about the head and shoulders.  Destruction, perversion, soul-sickness, rampaging, colliding, imposing, man, he lets us have it, realizing that we don't want to look at ourselves.  He's making a clear, strong case that we are out of control.  Later in the Step he talks about the alcoholic insisting that his drinking isn't that bad and if it is that bad then he's not hurting anyone else but himself and if he is hurting someone else then it's only reasonable given how fucked up the other person is.  Can you see why new people are such a pain in the ass to deal with?

So . . . it's you, it's not them, and you lost it a long time ago.

I remember a story a guy in Indianapolis shared a long time ago.  He was a confident salesman type and he said when he was drinking he went through a phase where he read a lot of books on taking charge.  Then he got on a binge where he read books about being positive, the result being, he said, that he was battering people with happy, assertive behavior.  He was golfing with some friends one day, droning on in this vein, when one of the guys pulled him aside and said: "What are you talking about?  You've been in the rough all day.  You're terrible."  This is your average alcoholic: oblivious and resistant to any attempts to uncover the reasons why.

Jung V Freud V Seaweed

 "Any person who has reached forty years of age and who still has no means of comprehending who he is, where he is, or where he is next going, cannot avoid becoming a neurotic - to some degree or other.  This is true whether his youthful drives for sex, material security, and a place in society have been satisfied or not satisfied."  Carl Jung

I think the idea here is that Jung believes that some kind of faith in something bigger than oneself is important to anyone who is trying to achieve some peace of mind.  Or trying to avoid clinical paranoia and depression.  Pretty weighty recommendation from one of the founding father's of modern psychiatry.  To be fair we also hear from Freud who thought God was an infantile desire for a dominant father figure and was really only necessary to curb violent urges in early civilization which can now be abandoned for science and reason.  Ima gonna go with Jung on this one . . . 

SuperK and I are both quite proficient in the passive-aggressive interpersonal technique.  I like being passive-aggressive.  It allows me to act like a dick while maintaining that I'm not a dick at all.  It's a win-win.  When one of us gets irritated at the other and makes a passive-aggressive stand, it's uncomfortable enough that this question comes up: "Are you mad at me?"  Half the time I don't know what I did that was so offensive.  The other half of the time I allow her to explain why she's upset and apologize while hopefully  altering my behavior so that I don't do the irritating thing again.  

I told a friend in A.A. about this, a guy with 40 years of sobriety, a good, decent guy.  He said: "Huh.  I don't think I've ever said that."  He was married once, briefly, a long time ago.  He was wise enough to never marry again and I don't say that as a criticism.  I believe some of us aren't cut out to be married or to have children.  It's ok.  He's a very happy man.

Stand and Deliver

 "Rest is not a matter of doing absolutely nothing.  Rest is repair."  Daniel Josselyn

Because those of us who show up get answers I'm amused to report that this was my daily reflection for today which I read while hobbled by a spasm in my hip.  I tend toward doing something as a solution for everything and sometimes I have to remember that doing nothing is doing something.  This is rarely clear to me.  I want to fix something.  It's not intuitive that sometimes not doing anything is the best solution.

Bill W on fear: "Therefore the problem of resolving fear has two aspects.  We shall have to try for all the freedom from fear that is possible for us to attain.  Then we shall need to find both the courage and grace to deal constructively with whatever fears remain.  (And he segues into one of his biggest sources of fear - failing at life.)  I'd never settle for any second-rate staus.  I felt I simply had to dominate in everything I chose to do: work or play.  I came to value everything in terms of victory or defeat - all or nothing.  The only satisfaction I knew was to win."  And the implication as I understand this is that whenever he didn't win he felt less than and fear crept into the picture.  My takeaway from these comments is that through constructive actions and spiritual growth we'll be able to vanquish many of our fears and those that are intractable will be our teachers.  Who grows when they're getting their own way?  One of my personal and oft repeated touchstones it that there aren't good things or bad things but rather pleasant things and painful things.  I can't see into the future to figure out which is which.

The man who wept in front of me at the meeting this week has really stayed in my heart.  That scene, that episode, that incident will remain with me always.

Where Is My Attention?

 "Avoid friends and follower who are detrimental to thy peace of mind and spiritual growth."  Tibetan Rosary of Precious Gems

We may look at our friends of the past and recognize now they were not the best influences for us.  Perhaps that's why they were our friends: they were just like us.  The people we choose as our friends validate us and our growth.  If we choose to be around unhealthy people then we, too, are unhealthy.  Yet if we choose to be around people concerned about their growth, who ask for help when necessary, who can receive yet also give, then we are like those people.

SuperK still has trouble with her family.  I still feel some irritation with the apostates who broke away from my morning meeting.  Yet when we take a deeper look at the individuals who are giving us the most trouble we find people who in large measure, we don't respect or like or, at least, hold in some higher regard.  I turn again and again to the wisdom of George Costanza who - responding to Jerry's confusion on why he was so obsessed with a girlfriend of Jerry's that really disliked him - said: "She just hates me so much that I'm finding her irresistible."  Yeah, I get that.  How much of my time I spend contemplating my contempt for people that I don't care for as opposed to thinking about the people that I cherish.

From Bill W who misguidedly tried to "convert" an agnostic friend who turned out to be a great humanitarian: "This was the story of a man of great spiritual worth.  The hallmarks were plain to be seen: humor and patience, gentleness and courage, humility and dedication, unselfishness and love - a demonstration I might never come near to making myself.  This was the man I had chided and patronized.  This was the unbeliever I had presumed to instruct!  It then, for the very first time, it burst in upon me how very dead faith can be - when minus responsibility."

Don't be an asshole today.

Maybe. Maybe Not.

 Our Monday meeting is based on the Big Book - the leader reads a sentence or paragraph from the first 164 pages and then speaks on what was read.  At about the halfway point a man shouted what sounded like an obscenity outside the building.  This isn't terribly unusual at our urban location.  Shortly afterwards a powerfully built younger guy came down the stairs and entered the room, carrying a banana, a cup of coffee, and a set of keys.  

(This sounds like the set-up of a bad vaudeville bit.  "He ate the coffee and the keys and was jamming the banana into the ignition of a Maserati . . . when a Jewish priest came up and asked for directions to the ashram . . . . ")

He didn't look like he was homeless but he had a vaguely confrontational air about him.  The meeting ended, people split off into twos or threes to chat, the guy got up, collected his belongings and starting drifting to the door.  It's a source of pride with me that you can't sneak out of my meeting without interacting with someone so I intercepted him, a touch warily, I admit, and introduced myself, asked how his day was going.  He stood there for a few beats, collecting himself, when his lips started trembling.  Not very good, he said, I'm not having a very good day.  I could see tears welling up in his eyes.  I just waited patiently.  Eventually, he starting listing all the shit going on in his life that wasn't too great.  His eyes filled up and tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto the floor.  He made no attempt to wipe his face or stop weeping.

It made me think of the despair I felt when I was ending my long, brutal run unsuccessfully trying to best King Alcohol.  I really had no words of wisdom.  I mean, what can you say?  Except that it's going to get better and you don't have to feel this way anymore if you don't want to.  Alcohol is a tireless enemy if you're an alcoholic.  It does not give up.

I'm not the most tolerant guy in the world when it comes to . . .  well . . . people in general.  I think most people are idiots.  I think I'm an idiot.  We're all fucking idiots.  The point being that I don't really care much about sponsoring people.  I don't see the point in telling someone else what to do.  I don't know what they should do.  Why would someone want me to tell them what to do?  I'm happy to tell you what worked for me and then you can decide if the results are something that's attractive to you.  If so, maybe you try it yourself.  If not, no skin off my back.  I had to find my own way and you will, too.  Circling back to the point again which I lost track of is that I've found a way to bring my own experience, strength, and hope to The Program.  As Mr. Outgoing I tackle the new people before they can escape.

Think we'll see that dude again?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  There was another brand new guy who came to several meetings.  Three of us were standing in line after one when this dude came storming out of the bathroom, cursing the employee who obviously didn't want a homeless looking guy using their bathroom.  He blew past us, head down.  Haven't seen him again.  Our embarrassing behavior!

GOAT

 From one of Bill W's pamphlets, this one on faith and spirituality . . . .

"(New members) just don't realize that faith is never a necessity for A.A. membership; that sobriety can be achieved with an easily acceptable minimum of it, and that our concepts of a higher power and God as we understand Him afford everyone a nearly unlimited choice of spiritual belief and action."

More from the Sponsorship pamphlet . . . 

"The principle of rotation not only allows (established) members to move on in service, but also give newer members the privilege of serving.  Rotation also allows them to understand that no one should hold onto a position of trust long enough to feel a proprietary interest and thereby discourage newcomers from service.  Experience shows clearly that the members getting the most out of the A.A. program, and the groups doing the best job of carrying the A.A. message to still-suffering alcoholics, are those for whom sponsorship is too important to be left to chance."

Paul Tillich was a German existential philosopher and highly influential Lutheran cleric . . . 

"The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements as well as one's deepest failures is a definite symptom of maturity."

I'm not so bad and I'm not so great.  I'm not a piece of %^$!! and I'm not the GOAT.  I'm just a dude . . . right in the middle.

Chekhov, Twain, and Amman

"Any idiot can face a crisis; it's this day-to-day living that wears you out."  Anton Chekhov

We were on a cruise ship for part of our last vacation.  One day we got off the boat for a hike in a remote part of Greenland and the mosquitoes were pestilential.  Biblically so.  Actually, they were more of a flying gnat that didn't bite but just swarmed around your face, flying into your eyes and nose and ears.  I'm not sure what their end game was.  I can't imagine that flying into my ear hole was a satisfying end for this bug but their motivation remains opaque to me.  Anyway, back on the ship we chatted for a while with a couple who were also on the hike and the woman complained that none of the staff had warned us about these insects.  I was aware of the scourge of summer insects in Greenland - it's written in every travel book - and had bug spray and kind of a beekeeper's insect net that covered my head and face.  Her husband shushed her gently, reminding her that we really need to blame ourselves when things don't go the way we want.  I secretly enjoyed this.

On a similar note LSD Tom was at the meeting today.  His right leg was noticeably swollen and he was clearly limping.  I cornered him in the kitchen.  His leg is infected.  How does your thigh get infected?  From a testosterone shot.  I rolled my eyes internally.  Why this healthy, single 50 year old man needs to get a testosterone shot is beyond me but then so is a woman doubling the size of her breasts.  If that wasn't funny/sad/weird enough he told me that this was the second time he's had problems with one of those shots.  Talk about causing your own problems . . . 

"He who leads a humble life has wisdom in his heart."  Jordanian proverb

 When I'm feeling off it's usually because I'm uncomfortable with something I'm doing or with something I should be doing that I'm not doing.  Usually, I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing.  That's usually the problem with me.

I tend to think that the best people are given the gravest challenges.  The best people can handle them.  God doesn't test us with anything we aren't capable of handling.  I believe I get what I need and not necessarily what I want so I'm damned careful to be thankful when - as so often happens - I do get what I want.  It's embarrassing how often I get what I want.  I'm like a spoiled rich kid looking at my Christmas list, realizing I got everything on it plus some more stuff I wasn't greedy enough to also ask for.

"I never argue with idiots.  They drag you down to their own level and then beat you with experience."  Mark Twain

Love people for who they are and not who you want them to be.

Spirituality V Religion

 Eddie Rickenbacker was a pilot whose plane was lost over the South Pacific during WWII.  The surviving members of his crew floated for 21 days in a life raft before they were eventually rescued.  He had this to say: "The biggest lesson I learned was that if you have all the fresh water you want to drink and all the food you want to eat, you ought never to complain about anything."

I might add a warm, dry place to sleep at night and then your needs are met.  Everything else is a want.  To answer my complaining about some insignificant problem a sponsor once told me: "Seaweed, all your problems are problems of prosperity."  Shut me up, that one did.

More general suggestions about sponsorship that also apply to all of our interpersonal interactions in The Fellowship: "Good A.A.s appreciate that alcoholics have been able to achieve and maintain sobriety without any belief in a personal Higher Power.  Perhaps we might point out the distinction between the words 'spiritual' and 'religious.' "

Spiritual:  Relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.

Religious: Having a strong belief in God or Gods; devoted to God or to the powers or forces believed to govern life.

And if someone you know drinks again (as many of us do, unfortunately): "It order to make the return truly a new beginning, it may be wise at this point to avoid postmortems on the reasons for the slip."  I try to tell the relapser that I'm glad they came back - because many people don't - and that I appreciate that they were courageous enough to tell someone they had a drink - because many people are embarrassed enough about their actions that they keep this secret.

Here and Anon

 I was seeing a counselor in sincity once who remarked: "I have a couple of close friends.  That's enough.  I don't have time for a lot of friends."  She was responding some complaint I was voicing about my lack of friends or my lack of quality friends or why my friends weren't as excited that I was their friend instead of the opposite.  She said this in a positive way, too, I think.  She wasn't bemoaning the fact that she didn't have the time to hold up her end of the obligation of being a friend. While I do like having lots of acquantinances I also see the wisdom of holding them loosely.  The more people, places, and things that I collect means that the time I have to spend cultivating and maintaining these people, places, and things goes up exponentially.  My thoughts and actions on this topic has been evolving quickly lately.

One of the reasons we so value the Fourth Step and all subsequent refresher Fourth Steps and the countless inventories we take is that we're always finding new stuff.  We're always changing and if don't adapt then we squander what we have and fail to grow into the people we're meant to be.  What worked well yesterday might not be the best thing for tomorrow.

Sometimes I need to go to a meeting and sometimes I need to take care of business.  I, personally, need to be a little careful in this regard.  Sometimes I'm just filling time with my attendance.  Not a terrible thing but maybe sometimes a wasteful thing.

More from the Sponsorship pamphlet . . . which I think has really good advice for dealing with newer people in any capacity:  "It has already been pointed out that we stay sober through reliance on the  A.A. program, not on any one member.   The sponsor will  also have encouraged the newcomer to  talk to other A.A. members with longer-term sobriety.  Now might be the time for a heartfelt talk in which the sponsor again explains the importance of relying on the entire A.A. program."  The ego involved with someone who thinks that what they say about recovery, what their experience has been, applies to everyone else.  Whew.

"Sponsorship is a flexible venture, and good sponsors are themselves flexible in working with new people.  It is just as much a mistake to thrust unwanted help upon a newcomer as it is to refuse help when a newcomer asks for it.  Occasionally, it may be wise to introduce the newcomer to an A.A. member who shares more of the newcomers's background and interests."  I hear people mention that they've been "fired" by someone they sponsor.  Well, OK, I guess.  Personally, I've never been surprised when someone turns elsewhere for advice and I can say this even when I think the individual is advice shopping.  If I don't like what you're saying I can look at myself and find what's inside me that makes the advice unpalatable or I can go find someone else who says what I want to hear.

Serenity, Recovery, and Seaweed

 From this little pamphlet on Serenity . . . 

"So if we find ourselves in an apparently hopeless situation, with every avenue of escape blocked, we must not rebel.  Instead, we must realize that God has a reason for permitting it.  Most of us can look back over our lives and see how the loving hand of God has brought a happy ending to many events that seemed to be unmitigated tragedies at the time.  The trouble is that most of us think happiness consists in the fulfillment of our wants and desires, or at the very least in freedom from pain and suffering.  Actually, it consists in the serenity that comes from conforming our own will to the will of God."

And from this little book on recovery . . . 

"What difference does it make if things are left undone tonight?  Will it matter ten years from now?  Nothing is so important that we should carry tension and worry into our relaxation time.  What is important is our ability to accept the day's events by the time we're ready to sleep."

Not long ago I reread the last ten years of my personal writing journals.  Two things struck me: How rarely the things that caused me angst came to pass and how consistently I worry about the same few things, sort of a Top Ten of Personal Anxieties.  Moreover, I saw how often I felt like I shouldn't be worrying about things that clearly merited some angst.  If I hear an emergency siren and a friend or loved one isn't home I probably shouldn't panic.  If my mother and father die within a year of each other I probably should expect to be upset at some point.  

I'm trying to be grateful for all of my blessings and I'm trying to develop perspective at all my irritations and bedevilments.  In the end, in the long run, they are crashing cymbals and tinkling bells, all sound and fury, amounting to nothing when all is said and done.  One of my core principles is trying to understand that contentment consists not in getting what I want but in enjoying what I have.  As a grown-up I realize that if I'm only contented when I'm getting what I want then I'm going to be discontented most of the time.  As a grown-up I know that if I look closely enough then I can find something enjoyable - or at least beneficial and constructive - in any situation, no matter how disagreeable.

If only I look for it.

Solution Based - Problem Based - You Make the Call

 I hadn't planned on attending a meeting today but I woke up early and made the drive.  The meeting was small so I'm glad I made the effort to go.  Moreover, there were a couple of women there that I've known since I arrived in SoCal.  One of them, a flight attendant, recently moved back into the area from Texas, where she had been based, and spent ten days with her ex-husband in a blackout drunk, a continuation of the relapse she suffered in Dallas.  She did not look good.  The other woman, a chronic relapser, was recently released from the hospital where she was undergoing treatment for brain damage she suffered from her renewed drinking.  She looked worse.  I like both of these women.  Between them they've got a few days of sobriety.

The meeting was led by a woman who recently completed her year milestone.  She has a lot of professional responsibility as the executive director of a homeless shelter and is in the midst of a difficult employee situation that she's prevented from talking about due to confidentiality restrictions.  Driving home last night the idle thought crossed her mind that it sure would be relaxing to get home and have one drink; in fact, she used the charged word "cocktail" to sort of class it all up.  While it didn't seem to me that she was actually going to go through with this plan of action she was aware enough to pull off the highway for a short spell to dispel this kind of thinking.  I was struck by the two examples this morning: two problem based, one solution based.  The director looked pretty good this morning.   There was also a young woman there who has a couple of months clean and sober.  A better series of lessons to hear I can not imagine.

I often share the story of my last drink: Easter Sunday in 1987.  I drank and drank and drank and never experienced even a minute of relief, the kind of relief that the director imagined she might have.  The jumping-off point.  The instance where I realized I couldn't imagine a life with alcohol or without alcohol and, folks, that covers all the time there is.  I can remember that day with startling clarity.  It was one of the worst days of my life.

A surprising number of people believe that other people can hurt their feelings.

Acceptance is the only real source of tranquility, serenity, peace.

We can very seldom change people, though we can change ourselves.

We have free will which means we can choose a path of evil or a path of goodness.  Sometimes I wonder why man wasn't just programmed to walk a righteous path but then we'd be robots and what's the fun in that?  If you want a reward then you have to choose to do good.

Spiritual Growth

One of the complaints that I hear all the time in meetings is that the spiritual angle can be tough to swallow.  Well, no shit, I say, pointing out that about half of the first 164 pages of the Big Book are all about spirituality.  The Founders knew that spirituality was going to stick in the craw of most alcoholics.  I mean in our major religious books we have people rising from the dead and raising other people from the dead and walking on water and parting seas and shit like that.  I mean . . . c'mon.  I'm a scientist and I like things that make sense in a sequential, logical way and walking on water doesn't fit in that category.  In my Quiet Time each morning I bid my very traditionally religious godhead good day and ask for a release from any doubts I have, while mumbling obliquely that this is all some pretty weird shit.  Hearing voices coming from burning bushes where the flames aren't consuming the bush?  Sounds like what happened whenever I took some bad acid in college.

I also hear that the routine of recovery - of life - can get awfully boring from time to time.  But I know that if I don't stick to some kind of routine I might find myself in trouble.  Of course it's irritating to spend so much time on recovery and spiritual growth.  Most of the time I suck it up and power forward, certain that I'll make it back to the point where I'm enjoying both of the above.  Either that or I find myself slipping on a glacier in Greenland.  Can't imagine that every getting boring.  Can imagine that becoming a pain in the ass eventually, though.  "We have to go out on that fucking glacier again today, goddammit?"

One of my friends at the meeting today - where we talked about God and routine, could you guess? - is a woman who's a lot like me: disciplined, controlled, regimented, organized, who attended A.A. as more of a completed task, something to check off her To Do list, than as something she wanted to do.  One day she came in and told me that she was going to start attending more meetings, that she always felt good after she came.  There it is: living proof of the old adage that we attend meetings until we want to attend meetings.

Avoidance is to be Avoided

Avoidance:  Any behaviors people use to escape or distract themselves from difficult thoughts, feelings, and situations. 

And the good doctor sayeth . . .

 "For some people, trapped on a treadmill of obligation, the disadvantages of diminished functioning and physical pain are counterbalanced by the relief of lowered expectations.  This is a dangerous development in that those aspects of our characters that we incorporate into our sense of ourselves are sub-conscious and resistant to change.  And, in the case of a life constricted by anxiety, people need to muster the determination to confront their fears and stop giving in to them.  This approach manifests the cardinal rule of anxiety: Avoidance makes it worse; confrontation gradually improves it."

I was attending a grief group after my dad died and one of the monitors of the group admonished me thusly: "Pay attention to your anxiety.  There's a message there.  What is it trying to tell you?'

Man, I am a master of avoidance.  When something is painful, I just want to get the fuck away from it.  Confront it?  Pay attention to it?  That's crazy shit, man