Who's The Real Idiot?

There's a guy that has been a regular at my meeting since he got sober.  He was an angry guy.  He was so angry that he was tagged by some of our more sarcastic members with the sobriquet "Angry Chris" which - of course - pissed him off.  He's been coming to meetings for seven or eight years and he has gotten a lot less angry and watching these kinds of transformations are one of the great joys of my life.  If someone doesn't use a turn signal in front of him his old reptile brain still brands that driver as an idiot - that's his essential Chris-ness - but it doesn't make him mad anymore . . .  or not as mad anyway.  I love seeing people change without losing touch with the kind of person they are.  He's still Chris but he's "Fun Angry Chris" now.

I think of my own growth in The Program.  I've always had what I call a dry sense of humor and it no longer irritates me when someone suggests instead that I'm sorta a sarcastic pain in the ass because there's probably some truth in that.  That's my essential Seaweed-ness.  If I didn't have a dry sense of humor I wouldn't be me and most of the time I like me just fine.  But what I needed to do was to learn how to make this dryness playful and kind and not cutting and judgemental.  I bet if you heard newly sober Seaweed say the same thing to the same person - the exact same words - that thirty-eight year sober Seaweed would say you'd cringe at the old Seaweed and laugh with the new Seaweed.  Same words - different effect.  Something would be off with the impact of the old Seaweed.  You'd wince a bit.

I feel like what I've been able to do over the years is to rub off the rough edges of the old Seaweed and add some putty and bondo to the underdeveloped parts and come up with a new and improved Seaweed.  Funny and kind Seaweed instead of arrogant and unkind Seaweed.  That's the improvement.  But as weird as it sounds I still retain some of my arrogance and judgemental nature.  That's the essential, the authentic Seaweed.  I still think I'm better than everyone else and I still think everyone else is an idiot.  I think you're an idiot and I don't even know who you are.

The good thing is that I DO know who the REAL idiot is.

My God Uses Drugs Responsibly

My God is a casual drug user.  He's God so he doesn't have a problem with drugs.  I mean . . . he made the drugs so he's really dialed into what's okay and what isn't.  He is quick to point out that some drugs are crappy and dangerous - fentanyl and methamphetamine come to mind - and that not everyone can tolerate a little recreational drug use but he's good with his routine.  He can take it or leave it.  Some weed to get the creative juices flowing and an occasional hit of LSD to weird things out - that kind of drug use.  I've come to this conclusion after many hours pondering the magnificence of our natural world and the stuff in it.  For instance, I think God had a lot of no-nonsense hard-working days when he made trees and dogs and salmon and then there were the down days where he was tripping a little bit and he built penguins and kangaroos and flying fish.  There is a family of owls living in the barranca near my house and they spend some time hooting at me.  God was definitely a little stoned when he came up with that.  Songbirds singing lovely lyrical songs make sense - some weirdo night bird hooting . . . that's evidence of some good weed, that is.  

Who Are You Again?

In the Doctor's Opinion the good doctor relates an incident where a former patient walked into his office after some sober time in our brand spanking new Twelve Step Program and was so changed that he was virtually unrecognizable.  The doctor sensed that he had known this man but couldn't make the jump from the trembling, destroyed alcoholic who first entered his office to someone full of the joy of life, self-confident and relaxed.  I've looked at the occasional picture of myself at the end of my drinking life.  I don't do it too often because it's an unpleasant experience.  Qualifiers like "Undateable" and "Unemployable" come to mind.  I thought I was fooling people, pulling the wool over their eyes as to the kind of life I was living?  Holy Moly, mother of god I was fooling precisely no one.

I had been sober for a little while and was visiting my family in sincity when I ran into the mother of one of my best friends while walking through a local shopping mall.  I strode over, big smile on my face, happy to see her, a mama who had always been kind to me and a favorite of mine, and was perplexed to see a confused look on her face.  She did not recognize me.  I had to introduce myself.  I'm sure I thought that she was deep into dementia or had cataracts occluding her eyesight because who in the hell could forget me?  I recall being mildly offended.  "Boy, I must have made a big impact on her."  That kind of thinking.  Today I understand that we change as we get healthy.  We look different, so different that people don't recognize us immediately or they don't recognize us at all.

Tension and stress and fear and anxiety are written large on our faces.  The damage caused by smoking and using and drinking and not getting enough sleep and eating like shit show on our faces.  I guess the destruction is so slow-motion that we don't pick up on the changes.  Boy, aren't you glad you're sober?

Here Comes the Crud

I think a lot about gratitude and how surprising a concept it can be.  How often I'm not as grateful as I should be for the mundane, taken-for-granted blessings in my life.  This doesn't make me a bad person.  In fact, I think that it makes me pretty average.  Life is not easy and we're often fending off difficulties and challenges, not contemplating our navels, marveling at how good we have it.  An apt reminder for me is to be grateful that I'm in very good health.  I usually take this blessing as something that I've earned or that is my due.  I'm one of those people who kind of gets whatever crud is circulating through a community.  I get an average number of colds or respiratory illnesses.  I'm not sick all the time but I do get sick.  Many years ago - 2004, to be precise, demonstrating how transformative this experience was - I contracted a stubborn chest cold that hung in there for quite a while.  As I was just rounding back into health I got the flu - I've had the flu twice in my life that I can remember so another transformative experience - and was as sick as a dog for a few weeks.  I believe that because my body was so worn down fighting off crud that in my run-down, weakened  state I was vulnerable enough to get another cold.  I recall getting sick, being sick, and recovering from being sick for a solid two months.  Then, one day, I was shocked to realize I felt healthy.  I was blown away by how healthy I felt. I was immensely grateful that I simply wasn't sick.  I didn't win the lottery or anything - I just wasn't sick.  I was struck by the realization that I express very little gratitude for all of the days and weeks and months that I'm in good health and fine fettle.  I remember saying: "Goddamn I feel good" while realizing that I feel this way almost all of the time and totally take it for granted.

Holes

I believe that there are parts of life that are commonplace and express an importance that we don't  always honor.  We adapt.  We make do.  We have a toothache so we chew on the other side.  The smart thing to do is to get the tooth fixed but some of us don't have the money or we're afraid of dentists or we're too drunk to get off the couch so we compromise and ignore the loss if we're missing something or live with the trauma if we're enduring something less than ideal.

I think of my father in this regard.  Dad was not unusual for a boy/man growing up in the 40s and 50s.  Men didn't express their emotions or admit their problems.  They buckled down and endured.  They went to work and attended a Christian church and provided for their families and that was as common a thing as you could imagine.  He was a friendly, funny guy who had a temper and was an isolator and was quicker to find fault and criticize than he was to praise.  I had an okay relationship  with dad - not close, not intimate, not warm, but not bad.  We didn't talk frequently and when we did it was superficial in nature or I was getting hollered at.  A typical encounter might have been watching a baseball game together, mostly in silence.  I didn't do this as often as I might have and today I realize that I might have shown up  more often for events like this.  It's what he wanted to do, what he was comfortable doing, and I think he just enjoyed my presence.  He didn't want to talk about his feelings with his grown-ass son - he wanted his grown-ass son to come over and watch the baseball game with him.  It didn't occur to him to maybe do what I wanted to do from time to time.  He was pretty fixed in his belief that he should be able to do what he wanted to do and that I should accommodate that.  I don't think he considered this overly selfish.  I think he felt he had done his part and that was that.

So . . . not good, not bad, pretty typical.  Lots of men my age would report the same thing.  There wasn't any electronic way to stay in touch and long-distance calls were expensive which made communication less frequent.  The point is this: when my father died I was flabbergasted at how big a hole it left in my life.  It was profound.  It was, for a while, devastating.  I was sober 25 years when he died so I had some pretty well-developed coping skills at that point but it still hit me like a ton of bricks.  I had adapted to a relationship that was less than ideal . . . or was less than ideal for a needy, attention-sucking, hyper-sensitive problem child like me.

It reminds me of an incident that occurred before they kicked me out of optometry college.  I was attending to a patient who came in complaining of headaches.  Our exam revealed that she had what is commonly called a lazy eye, a condition where the focus of one of the eyes tends to drift off to the side because some of the ocular musculature isn't well developed.  A pretty common condition that can be treated by installing a prism in the patient's glasses - this changes the angle of the incoming light rays so that the gaze naturally and easily shifts back to straight-ahead.  This woman did have the prism in her glasses but it was installed backwards so that the tension in her eye was twice as bad as it should have been.  She was unconsciously straining to get both of her eyes to focus in the same direction.  My recollection is that she put up with this for an extended period of time.  In A.A-speak she was just suffering needlessly and not doing anything about it.

Texts, Books, Friends, Meetings

From our text: "We ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives."

Overheard at a meeting: "When I put God in charge of my thinking, much needless worry is eliminated and I believe God guides me throughout the day."

Read in a book: "Action is about living fully.  Inaction is the way that we deny life.  Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are.  Expressing what you are is taking action.  You can have many great ideas in your head, but what makes the difference is the action.  Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward."

Talking to a friend I heard this for the first time: "At first I had fun; then I had fun with problems; then I just had problems."  You'd think after forty years I would have heard every little phrase by now.

Aphorism Number One: "That light you see at the end of the dark tunnel?  Maybe it's a freight train coming the other way."

Aphorism Number Two: "Remember - it's always the darkest right before it goes totally black."

Jesus and Satan and Ozzy Osbourne Walk Into a Bar . . .

We have a vigorous discussion about God and gods and religion and spirituality in Alcoholics Anonymous.  The Higher Power construct has saved more alcoholics than anything else while simultaneously driving away more alcoholics than anything else.  After all, we are polarizing people - confused polarizing people.  We're aware of this so we tread lightly and carefully around the "spiritual angle."  In the Midwest I perceived a much more pronounced religious effect - it was the Lord's Prayer to close the meeting and only the Lord's Prayer - while here in sunny Southern California where the atheists and agnostics have a strong presence - it's the Serenity Prayer and only the Serenity Prayer.

I grew up in a conservative Christian church and I consider myself a Christian.  I think I'm a pretty good Christian but I bet a lot of official Christian preacher types would say "meh."  I don't practice in any organized sense and I pick and choose stuff to believe in or to leave by the wayside.  Organized religion has always seemed kind of rule-sy to me and I'm really, really resistant to rules.  Plus, the rules have a mild odor of pious and sanctimonious hypocrisy.  Who came up with these rules anyway?  The rules police?  People who maintain that God is speaking directly to them?  Sounds pretty arrogant to me.   Plus-plus, there's an emphasis on "if you don't do this you'll burn for all eternity on a  lake of fire."  That doesn't sound very nice.  It certainly doesn't sound like fun. It doesn't sit well with me to be threatened that if I don't behave well I'll get roasted.  Plus-plus-plus,  Religious people often come across as dour and overly serious.  I mean, for all eternity?  That's pretty heavy-handed.  How about "we'll toss you into a lake of fire and then snatch you right back out after a couple of minutes?"  I can't imagine anyone saying "oh, I'm only in the lake of fire for a minute so I'm going to murder the asshole that didn't use his turn signal."  Can you point out a good joke that Jesus told?  I mean . . . if you're a god that can defeat hell and sin and Satan and bring people back from the dead I'd think you'd also have a god-like sense of humor.  If I was a god I'd be bringing down the house.  I'd be so fucking funny my church would be packed on Sunday.  Here's Jesus in the wilderness with 5,000 people and some bread and fish and he's worried about lunch? Nobody brought anything to eat?  No one stuffed a Nutrigrain bar into their man-purse?  That doesn't sound very plausible.  Personally, I'd be working out new material for my stand-up routine and not worrying about lunch.  You know - "Jesus and Satan and Ozzy Osbourne walk into a bar . . . "

I say this: build your own higher power.  What would that look like?  Nice, kind, friendly, patient, tolerant, possessing as previously mentioned a wicked sense of humor.  Do that today and don't worry so much about heaven and hell and good and evil.  Be nice.  Don't be an asshole.  Use your turn signals and let that guy get in front of you on the highway.  I like the big concepts in religious texts but I also think that we intuitively know what good behavior looks like.  Do that.

Into Thinking

"Doing your best, you are going to live your life intensely.  You are going to be productive, you are going to be good to yourself, because you will be giving yourself to your family, to your community, to everything.  But it is the action that is going to make you feel intensely happy.  When you always do your best, you take action.  Doing your  best is taking the action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward."

I consider the titles of some of the original Alcoholics Anonymous chapters often.  There is a lot of emphasis on doing things: Into Action, How it Works, Working with Others.  There are not a lot of chapters dedicated to thinking.  "Into Thinking" would be very popular with new people who believe that the best thing to do would be to go off alone and think.  Very productive.  We are such clear thinkers.  Everything we think makes perfect sense to the entire world.  And if you don't believe me then share what you're thinking with another alcoholic.  The facial expression you're seeing could best be described as a confused sneer or maybe appalled confusion.  In other words - you are not making any sense at all.  That's why we encourage you to share whatever weird bullshit is richochting around in your brain with another . . .  you know . . .  live, conscious, attentive person.  If you stick with The Program then the looks on whomever you are currently holding captive with your confusion will start to improve.  

I took to heart the suggestion that I should initially concentrate on improving my behavior and a little later adding what words came out of my mouth into the mix.  Along the lines of not taking a swing at the guy I was calling a son of a bitch.  "Sure, if you think it's helpful you can still curse some guy out as long as it doesn't escalate beyond that."  That kind of thinking.  I know, I know, it doesn't sound great but my improvement was incremental.  No one mentioned trying to improve my thinking at the start because they knew that was way, way beyond any self-improvement progress I was going to be making.  In fact, I still do some homicidal thinking from time to time.  I just keep my mouth shut and my hands in my pockets while I'm doing it.

So today go to work and do your best.  If you do this you'll be happier at the end of the day.  If you just put in the time, resentfully, tolerating your job only for the paycheck and waiting for the escape of the weekend, then . . .  whew . . . sounds miserable, doesn't it?  It is work so it's not going to be as pleasant as play but if you're doing your best then it's going to go better.

What's the Big Rush?

I like this Zen reminder: "If you try too hard to do more than your  best, you will spend more energy than is needed and in the end your best will not be enough.  When you overdo, you deplete your body and go against yourself, and it will take you longer to accomplish your goal.  Just do your best because if you do your best there is no way you can judge yourself."

Here's a Buddhist Proverb: A student told a master that he was going to meditate for four hours each day and wondered how long it would take him to reach enlightenment.  "About ten years."  The student - who sounds like an alcoholic if you ask me, or at least he's behaving like one - told the master that he would meditate for eight hours a day, then, goddammit, so now how long would it take to reach enlightenment?  He was in a hurry!  He wanted to rush through meditation and rush into enlightenment and then what would he do?  In a big hurry?

Here's the master's reply: "You  are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life.  You are here to live, to be happy, and to love.  If you can do your best in two hours of meditation, but you spend eight hours instead, you will only grow tired, miss the point, and you won't enjoy your life.  Do your best, and perhaps you will learn that no matter how long you meditate, you can live, love, and be happy."

Another reminder that the theme of our Twelfth Step is the joy of living, that I get sober so that I can have a full and productive life.  I find that I cope better if I stay involved in my recovery but that the whole point is to have some fun and peace of mind.  I'm not a dude who's going to sit in an A.A. clubhouse and go to four meetings a day.  I can barely pay attention for an hour four times a week.

I am not as interesting as I think I am.

No one is thinking about me.  No one is doing anything to me.  I'm not that important.

I went to a doctor for a number of years who was the definition of a curmudgeon.  So I loved him, of course.  I love No Bullshit people.  He had a small sheet of paper on the wall of his exam room that looked like he put it together after an annoying day when he was in a bad mood.  It had things like "You do not get to talk about more than two issues.  I have other patients."  and my personal favorite "No matter how sick you think you are I'm dealing with other patients who are sicker than you."

Don't Change Anything! Ever!

I am starting to read the new literature offering from Alcoholics Anonymous called the"Plain Language Big Book."  My understanding is that the main goal is to modernize some of the dated language in the original text such as "boiled as an owl" or that weird reference about an explosion at Wombley's clapboard factory.  Who's Wombley?  What's clapboard?  And why is there an entire factory for making it?  I personally have never been in the market for clapboard, new or used.  And as a pretty committed vegetarian I don't like to contemplate the image of boiling an oil.  "What's for dinner, dear?"  "Your favorite - boiled owl with capers and a vinaigrette reduction."

I think part of the calculus as well was that the original members were by and large well-educated, Christian, old white me so some of the language can come across as vaguely sexist, overly religious, and occasionally outright racist.  I confess to loving some of the outrage by the attempt to reword our beloved text.   I'm kind of enjoying a snide laugh at the comments I hear occasionally about the apostasy of changing one word of our literature.  The conservatives among us don't want to change anything, ever! while the liberals want to change everything, right now!  There are, of course, all varieties in between but still most of us are reluctant to change something that has worked so well for so long for so many.  Me, personally, I love reading anything about spirituality or recovery.  I'm always learning something new or revisiting something I had forgotten.  I'm surprised to see passages underlined in my favorite books that don't resonate with me today or to come across something that really hits home that I glossed over originally.

In the introduction to the book we see how Bill W took his first faltering steps toward recovery.  The first key to the solution was his acquaintance with Dr. William Silkworth, a physician who took an early interest in alcoholism and began to term it an illness or disease and not a moral failing or sign of a personal character weakness.  Then Bill dipped his toe into the six step solution offered by an early Christian movement known as The Oxford Group.  Bill didn't embrace the religious part but did latch on to some of their suggestions on how to grow spiritually; such as a moral inventory, making personal amends, and sharing your issues with another person.  Still, some sober months later, he was in Akron on a failed business trip when he began to get very, very thirsty.  He knew he was in trouble of drinking again so he picked up the phone and started calling churches which led him eventually to his meeting with Dr. Bob - the first unofficial meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, although neither of them knew it at the time.

A common reaction with new people is to marvel at the lightness and joy that they experience when they start going to meetings.  There is something magical about the experience.  We don't know how to explain it very well or to describe that sense of freedom that we get.  I was privileged to talk to a woman after the meeting this morning who was on Day 11 of her sobriety.  I could see such relief on her face when it became obvious that I knew what I was talking about, that I really do know what she is going through.  This is a gift that we long-timers are given.  It is not a burden or a task that we don't want to do but do it anyway because we have to.

Plus, it is really, really great to recycle all of my stale and fairly obvious stories to someone who hasn't' heard them yet.

Many, Many Repetitions

"Understanding is the key to right principles and attitudes, and right action is the key to good living; therefore the joy of good living is the theme of A.A.'s Twelfth Step."

12&12 P. 125

"I had to face the ever-present knowledge that my every action, word, and thought was within, or outside, the principles of the program.  The only course open to me . . . was one in which I imposed on myself an effort of commitment, discipline, and responsibility."

Daily Reflections February 16

I really, really like the reminder that ultimately it's my responsibility to act, speak, and think in a loving and spiritual manner.  This can be difficult because often my instincts demand that I trample on the rights of my fellow man.  I like the suggestion that I'm the one responsible to impose this disciplined way of living on myself.  I know when I'm acting well and when I'm not.  I can keep acting the way I've always acted or I can make an effort to behave better.  Often, today, I do this, but not always.  Sometimes I get lazy and act, speak, or think like a dick.  Sometimes I enjoy doing this or otherwise why wouldn't I stop?  Man, I'm trudging and trying and that's all I can do.  I'm trying my best all of the time . . . some of the time . . .  every now and then .  .  . okay, I'm not trying my best very often but it sounds better to say that I am.

The line from Step Twelve tells me that the joy of living comes by practicing good action. 

The payoff of "good living" is joy.  And joy is the theme of the Twelfth Step.  I learn from this man I talk to at length every week who mentions women every time we talk.  Every time.  He's married and professes to be faithful in his marriage - and I don't doubt this - but he talks about women every time and he often describes his behavior in a way that make me wonder if it's borderline enough that it may eventually lead from sketchy behavior to destructive behavior. When I point this out to him his response has been along the lines of "I know what my bedevilments are."  That's a good start in my opinion but a start is all it is.  If I have behavior I want to change I have to recognize the behavior, then I need to change the behavior.  If I understand what I'm doing and I don't change I assume that I'm okay with the sketchy behavior.  Or I'd change it.  Sometimes I take a little pleasure in the behavior and this pleasure is sweeter than the work I need to do.  I guess what I'm doing is saying: "Fuck it.  Not going to change."

Because I believe spirituality is universal I'll toss in a Toltec principle: "What will really make the difference is action.  Taking the actions over and over again strengthens your will, nurtures the seed, and establishes a solid foundation for the new habit to grow.  After many repetitions these new agreements will become second nature."

I note the phrase "many repetitions."  I note the phrase "over and over again."  When I watch a golfer hit a beautiful drive what I have to remember is that she has practiced that drive over and over again.  The repetition has built up muscle memory so that she can take the action without a lot of thinking.  It is an ingrained habit.

A Flimsy Reed

The son of a man who is arguably my best friend in the world is just getting started on the process of recovery.  He asked if I would make myself available to his boy in whatever guise that may take.  It's hard to impress on the non-alcoholic what an honor it is to be asked such a question.  When I was drinking and using no one asked me to help out with anything.  The general request was usually more along the lines of "maybe could you please stay the fuck away from my kid?"

My tendency is to want to tell someone what to do.  On the one hand this is fallacious reasoning  because I'm an idiot like most of the other people walking around.  On the other hand I have managed to stay sober for a long time which makes me something of an expert in . . . keeping myself sober for a long time.  My impulse is to tell someone else to do it like me.  Today my best action is to tell someone else what I've done.  I don't know if that will work for anyone else.  I also throw out a lot of suggestions and possibilities of what I've seen work for others, ask a lot of questions so the other person can hear himself talk, work things out in their own fashion.  I can offer my opinion on what seems to be a successful approach to recovery and what seems dicey.  But, in the end, I don't know what anyone else should do about anything.  I'm not a retired major league baseball player with a .300 lifetime batting average trying to correct the swing of a nine year old fighting for a starting spot on his little league team.  That guy can tell someone what to do.  He's a baseball expert.  I'm not a recovery expert.  I'm not even a Seaweed expert.  I'm an idiot!

But, boy, is it an honor to talk to another alcoholic/drug addict, particularly one in the early throes of recovery.  It is a big part of what keeps us sober, this passing along what we have been freely given.  It still breaks my brain to muse on the idea that giving something away to someone else is such a great measure of my happiness.  I've changed from being an incredible, world-class selfish, oblivious prick to being a . . .  well . . . I'm still pretty self-centered - I'm just not featured this month on the cover of the Journal of Self-Centered Behavior.  I'm the subject of the main article but I think Willie has been on more covers than I have, and I've been on a lot of covers.

I think a lot of the good men and women in Indianapolis and Chicago and Cincinnati who walked hand in hand with me through my early days.  I can't ever remember an unkind word.  I can't remember more than an occasional suggestion that I should get off my ass and do something specific.  I think my forebears were sharing their own experience, strength, and hope.  I think they  were telling me it would be a good idea to hear the experience, strength, and hope of a lot of different people because - if I did that - I'd be sure to learn what was going to work for me.  I think they implied if I sat alone in my apartment it wouldn't be surprising if I lapsed into my past thinking and my past behavior.

The Toltecs: "We only see what we want to see, and hear what we want to hear.  We don't perceive things the way they are.  We have the habit of dreaming with no basis in reality.  We literally dream things up in our imagination."

From an anonymous A.A. member: "How amazing the revelation that the world, and everyone in it, can get along just fine with or without me.  What a relief to know that people, places, and things will  be perfectly okay without my control and direction." 

I love the old saying about a "flimsy reed."  Whenever I talk to a new person I feel like I'm safe onboard the ship and I'm reaching out this reed to someone trying to keep their head above water in an angry sea.  Here . . . here . . . grab on!

Here's the #$@!! Pool Again

I have another pool story.  It paints me in a bad light then in a good light then in a terrible light before I rally at the last minute and get painted in an otherworldly glow of god-like serenity and spirituality (I paint myself, anyhow, not saying anyone else would paint me such a nimbus around my head) and - like all my pool stories - isn't that interesting so I've had to take some time trying to figure out how to share the story without boring everyone to death.   

There are four lanes at my pool - two narrow lanes and two wide lanes with the wide lanes being up against the wall and the narrow lanes in the middle of the pool.  I like to swim in the wide lanes but not against the wall and I'm not thrilled about the narrow lanes, either.  I'm a tall guy with a big wingspan so some extra room helps me to not run into another swimmer or bang my hand on an unforgiving wall.  Under duress I will swim in any of the lanes, of course, with only the occasional curse muttered under my breath.

OK, that's not too bad so far.  Brief.  Clear images.  Moving forward quickly.  A little too technical and detailed but I am an engineer in my own mind.

I was up against the ropes and not against the wall in one of the wide lanes when a woman I know - a bit of an oddball which is OK because I'm not running on all cylinders myself - jumped in and asked if she could swim in my highly desirable lane using which would have shifted me against the wall.  I demurred politely at this pretty ballsy request.  She was not upset.  There were two "walkers" in the narrow lane next to me, nice women I know pretty well.  They're big girls so they like the wide end lane where they can walk side by side and chat while they're exercising.  "I'll tell you what," I said to the kooky woman, glowing brightly with my own generosity and consideration.  "I'll trade with these two and you all can share the big lane."  

A side note: swimmers don't really like the walkers.  They clog the pool up and it is a swimming pool after all.  You can walk anywhere.  I can only swim in water.  I'm not saying swimmers hate walkers as people but why don't you go outside and take a nice walk in the sunshine and fresh air?  Let me gasp for oxygen in peace while I'm trying not to drown.  I can't swim over to the coffee shop.  You sure as shit can walk over there.

Back to the riveting story . . .  Everybody begins walking and swimming.  Everybody is happy.  I swim down to the  far end of the pool, turn around, and the kook has clambered over the rope and is now walking with me in the narrow lane.  My initial reaction is like "What the fuck?  Are you fucking kidding me?"  Out of the goodness of my heart I gave up my preferred big lane/non-wall/against the rope slot so that I can be jammed into a narrow lane?  With this annoying person?  This walker?  I was outraged.  I was offended.  I felt violated.  It crossed my mind briefly that the goofball woman was fucking with me on purpose.  "Heh, heh, heh, I'll show him," she might have been, maybe, probably, muttering under her breath.

My first thought was that I would just swim down the middle of the lane and deliberately clip her with one of my hard plastic hand paddles as I passed her by - pool etiquette insists that you alert someone if you're going to share a lane to avoid such collisions.  I immediately discarded that.  Then, I decided I'd just swim my backstroke and if I clipped her with one of my hard plastic hand paddles it would be a "mistake" and not a deliberate assault.  I discarded that as well.  Quickly, very quickly but not immediately.  I vaguely sensed I was treading on shifting sands.  So I just started to swim with consideration.  I've been swimming a long time and I'm a pretty good swimmer so passing by someone in a narrow lane without clipping them with one of my hard plastic hand paddles is no big deal.  I was making a mountain out of a molehill.  I was upsetting myself to no good purpose.

I finished my swim at the same time as one of my big lady friends, and we climbed out of the pool together.  She said this, unprompted: "Stevie, you are a very nice person.  You are always very considerate of other people." She repeated this theme a couple of times.  Like most alcoholics my tendency is to downplay a compliment but I've learned that robs the compliment-er of the good feeling of paying someone else a compliment, deprives them of the pleasure of thinking of someone else in a loving manner.  Per usual I brought the spirituality I've learned in the Rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous into the conversation, explaining how the practice of NOT THINKING ABOUT MYSELF ALL THE TIME makes me very, very happy.

Pools notwithstanding.

Please Use Your Turn Signals

"When you take things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts.  You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong.         

It is not important to me what you think about me, and I don't take what you think personally.  (If you love me or if you don't) either way it does not affect me because I know what I am.  I don't have the need to be accepted.  I don't have the need to have someone (characterize who I am).  Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem.  It is the way you see the world.  It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me."

I've shared these thoughts from the book "The Four Agreements" before because they are so, so important to me.  The Second Agreement is "Don't take anything personally."  One of my A.A. core beliefs is to remind myself that no one is thinking about me, no one is doing anything to me.  That guy who didn't use his turn signal was not trying to piss me off.  That guy is living his own life and has his own worries and distractions so it's not about me and it's none of my business, anyway.

"If you get mad at me, I know that you are dealing with yourself.  I am the excuse for you to get mad.  And you get mad because you are afraid, because you are dealing with fear.  If you are not afraid, there is no way you will get mad at me."

Fear!  FEAR!  It is amazing how often this core emotion is at the root of all bad behavior.  I'm afraid so I lash out.  I'm afraid so I make it about you, about some external circumstance, some person, place, or thing, some organization, instead of dealing with the root causes of the fear.

It really is an inside job.     

I will admit that it is easier for me to brush off criticism than it is for me to minimize affection.  To know that someone likes me or loves me or cares about me and to maintain that it doesn't affect me personally is hard for me to digest.  I'm not there yet.  I may never be there.  I'm okay with this.  I'm happy to have gotten to the place where you can't really piss me off anymore.  Most of the time.  Some of the time.  Occasionally.  Okay, okay, you can still piss me off but I don't lose my shit over it anymore.  But to detach myself from love and affection and approval?  Harder to do.  When someone I care about drifts past me to talk to someone else it's harder for me to be okay with that.  I do crave me some love.  

Always Leave a Meeting With More Money Than You Came in With

"It is always better to ask questions than to make an assumption, because assumptions set us up  for suffering.  We have the tendency to make assumptions about everything.  The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth.  We could swear they are real.  We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking (Ed. Note: Thinking! Thinking!!) - we take it personally."

The Four Agreements

"Nobody is thinking about you."

Stevie Seaweed

Over the years I've had friends read my writing.  From time to time one of them will read an entry and think I'm talking about them.  "Was that last entry about  me?" they'll ask, with a proud and knowing nod of their misguided heads.  If it's something positive I often tell a little white lie and say: "Yes!  That was about you."  Here's the thing though - it has never been about the person who thinks it's about them.  It's always about me and my humorous attempts to learn what an asshat I am by poking fun about myself.

Me!  Me!! Me!!!

As if that's not bad enough I'll make it worse: most of what I say and write . . . well . . . I'm making it up.  If I tell a story about something that happened to me it almost certainly did not happen to me.  It's a story.  That's all it is.  I'm a confusing blend of German practicality and common sense and Scottish storytelling bullshit artistry.  Moreover, I bet all that LSD I did rewired some important circuits in my head.  On the one hand I'm trying to dazzle you, to lure you into a maze of circular logic, and on the other hand I'm trying to spin a good yarn.  I firmly believe that truth is no hindrance to a good story!  That's a bedrock Seaweed belief and I hew to it with great vigor.  And it gets more and more worser . . . I've been lying for so long that I actually believe most of what I'm saying.  I'll be in the middle of a ripping good tale and start thinking: "Did I ever do this?  I don't think I did this.  I may be making this up!"  But I keep on going.

Yesterday at the meeting I started my share with this: "It's a good meeting when I leave with more money than I came in with."  Nothing.  I got nothing.  I thought it was fucking hilarious and there were only a few quiet titters.  That one should have brought down the house.

Maybe There IS Something Out There

As a scientist I have a grasp on the miracle that is the complexity of the human body.  It is astounding to learn that we are completely unaware of millions of complicated chemical reactions happening in our body every second.  Our brain is sending out untold numbers of commands to keep us alive.  While we are unaware on a conscious level that this is happening smarter people can explain, more or less, what's going on.  Then there's the mind . . . That big nightmare of neurons and ganglia and electrical impulses talking to each other all the time, mostly in agreement but sometimes at odds with each other.  It's chaos!  It's the committee!      

Here's where it starts to get weird . . . maybe all of this wild shit that's going on up there is only part of the story?  Maybe there's a piece of me that's talking to or is aware of . . . something else.  Something we can't see but is out there nonetheless.  Why not? I take for granted the fact that my body is automatically regulating my pH levels and blood pressure and removing crap from my blood stream and attacking the germs that get in there when I drop some food on the ground and then pick it up and eat it with only a cursory brushing-off of whatever debris is now clinging to that Nutrigrain Bar.  It's the five second rule!  Pick it up and eat it quickly and trust my brain to clean up the mess!

"The mind has the ability to talk to itself, but it also has the ability to hear information that is available from other realms.  Sometimes you hear a voice in your mind, and you may wonder where it came from.  This voice may have come from another reality in which there are living beings very similar to the human mind.  The Toltecs called these beings Allies.  In Europe, Africa, and India they called them the Gods.  The mind sees with the eyes and perceives this waking reality.  But the mind also sees and perceives without the eyes, although the reason is hardly aware of this perception.  The mind lives in one dimension."   

Why is this so hard for many of us to grasp?  That we can perceive with our mind's eye?  That we take for granted that we're going to take the next breath without awareness?  It would be a shitty day if you had to consciously take each breath.  And how about birds who can migrate thousands of miles and end up on the same spit of land that they called home last summer?  These birds can navigate thousands of miles by tracking information in the earth's magnetic field and some of them even have metal bits in their beaks that respond to changes in this magnetism.  They sure as shit aren't doing this consciously.  Maybe they think that god is doing this?  One of the great blessings of my sobriety is that I now believe that I have a Mind's Eye that sees stuff from other dimensions.  Is this God?  Is this a god?  Maybe it's my loved ones who have moved into another plane sending me info that could be helpful to me here on this earth?  After all, moms are always going to be moms.

I'm freaking myself out a little bit this morning.

Crushed by Alcohol

"Never argue with an idiot.  They'll drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

I am a walking, talking bullshit machine.

Crush:  To squeeze or force by pressure so as to alter or destroy structure; violent compression; mash, squeeze, pulp, squash, press, powder, beat, pound.

"When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing.  God either is, or He isn't.  What was our choice to be?"

"Crushed" is a good word.  Alcohol crushed me.  It beat me, squashed me, pounded me into submission.  I was mashed into a powder.  Pulped.  Turned into a liquid from a solid state.  The phrase "self-imposed crisis" is pretty apt, too.  I spent a great deal of time postponing and evading.  I'll do this good thing for myself tomorrow.  I'll stop this bad behavior later.  Because I knew I was lying to myself I had to dance and dodge, make myself invisible, fade away into the gloaming or the fog or the dust, into the distance.  Evade, evade, evade.  Evade the cops, evade my boss, evade my loved ones, definitely evade anyone in the healthcare industry.  What good is it to hear bad news when I can pretend there is no bad news?

Isn't it weird that we call healthcare an "industry?" 

"Their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve."  Amazingly hard to solve.  Astoundingly hard to solve.

All Those Bastards on The Committee

Toxic:  Very harmful or unpleasant in an insidious or pervasive way. 

One of the favorite bits we hear often in Alcoholics Anonymous mentions a shadowy essence called "The Committee," a group of gibbering fools who live deep in our heads, firmly entrenched and brooking no dissent, spending their time and energy shrieking and screaming contradictory information at a high volume.  

Think we're special in The Rooms?  Here are the Toltecs: "The mind can also talk and listen to itself.  Part of the mind is speaking, and the other part is listening.  It is a big problem when a thousand parts of your mind are all speaking at the same time.  Each one has different thoughts and feelings; each  one has a different point of view.  This mental chaos is the reason humans hardly know what they want, how they want it, or when they want it.  They don't agree with themselves because there are parts of the mind that want one thing, and other parts that  want exactly the opposite."

Here's a huge Seaweed stereotype: Men come in A.A. angry and defiant and certain that the problem is with someone else and women come in depressed and guilty and ashamed and certain that they're the problem.  There are obviously many variations of this stereotype but it makes me aware that a One Size Fits All approach is a fool's errand.  If someone is sure that they're responsible for all the world's woes it hardly makes sense to come at them with a heavy hand.  If someone is feeling like crap it's not helpful for me to agree.  Guys need to be knocked off their high horse and women need to be helped back into the saddle.

Funny side note on why relationships between A.A. members can be a disaster: a woman who feels like shit believing that she's the problem connects with a guy who is sure he isn't the problem and is looking for someone he can blame.  The definition of toxic.

Gnawing on My Own Soul

"A.A. does not teach me how to handle our drinking.  It teaches us how to handle sobriety. It's no great trick to stop drinking; the trick is to stay stopped."

The Big Book P. 554  "To Handle Sobriety"   

There's a passage in The 12&12 that includes the phrase "gnawing anxieties."  Whew, that is an excellent adjective.  "I can ask myself to what extent my own mistakes have fed my gnawing anxieties."

Gnawing:  A sensation of dull, constant pain or suffering; feelings of doubt or worry that last a long time; to wear away by constant biting or nibbling.

I love the image of constantly biting something that is already sore or injured with my sharp incisors.  And doing it for a long time, never stopping, nibbling on the open wound.  Maybe not even using my sharp incisors - maybe using my back teeth, my flat molars that are designed for grinding up chunks of food into manageable bits.  I like the phrase "to nibble."  Doesn't it sound like what we do to a bowl of potato chips?  

\Man, that sounds like the end stages of my alcoholic life.

Energy Vampires Roaming the Neighborhood

More from "Freedom from Bondage: " I would not only find a way to live without having a drink but I would find a way to live without wanting a drink.  A.A. taught me that willingness to believe was enough for a beginning.  Nor could I quarrel with 'restore us to sanity,' for my actions drunk or sober, before A.A., were not those of a sane person.  Rationalization is giving a socially acceptable reason for socially unacceptable behavior, and socially unacceptable behavior is a form of insanity."

This is key, in my opinion. It's not the stopping drinking that is the most important - it's the staying stopped.  If quitting was the magic key then sober living houses and psych wards would be turning out miracles by the thousands.  Plenty of us stop - at least for a while - but almost as many don't maintain the stoppage.  We don't find a solution for the reasons that make us drink.  If I have suppurating wounds all over my body because I don't know how to handle a kitchen knife the most important thing to do is to stop cutting myself, not to learn good wound management, antibiotics and bandages and all that.  While good wound management is crucial at the start we're going to figure out that we either have to learn how to handle a knife or we have to throw the suckers away.

"A.A. has taught me that I will have peace of mind in exact proportion to the peace of mind I bring into the lives of other people, for the only problems I have now are those I create when I break out in a rash of self-will."   

Other people, other people, blah blah blah, I am so sick of thinking about other people.  Other people are the worst.  Other people drain the energy out of me and so prevent me from thinking about myself.  Other people are Energy Vampires.  Why can't they think about me?  And the thing is, in my sobriety, I'm speaking mostly in jest here but not as thoroughly as I should be . . . and when I was drinking?  Forget about it.

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

I like the part of this . . . Promise, really, when you think about it, this path to freedom from resentment . . . that suggests that we don't have to be sincere when we're praying for peace and serenity and good health and good fortune for some rival, some irritant, some enemy we actually wish would move to Antarctica and then freeze to death when they get there.  Even when we're just saying words that we don't mean an effect is made upon us.  We grow and we feel better and we often lose that resentment.  Now, granted, there are some really irritating sons of bitches out there that are going to require sustained and repeated praying but the magic really does happen when we stick with it.

Instead of praying that the irritant in your life goes blind how about praying that he only goes blind in one eye?  It's not great, it's not a form of advanced spirituality, but it is only half as vile as it used to be.     

This Wack-Job I Know Who Might Also Be a Dabbler

I know a guy in Ventura A.A. who has been sober forever.  Granted, a good chunk of this time he was dry rather than sober - a not insignificant difference - but he hasn't had a drink in 45 years.  That's a long time.  I don't care what kind of weird wack-job you are it's impressive for an alcoholic to not drink and drug for such a long stretch.  I love this guy and I tell him that, but he's still pretty much a wack-job to this day and if you tell him that he's a wack-job right to his face he'll laugh it off and say: "Sounds about right."  He's got good things to say for the most part and his independence, his insistence to blaze his own trail, is a comfort and an inspiration to many people.

Here's where we diverge: he insists periodically that it's therapeutic to take a year off of attending meetings.  I guess.  Who knows what works for other people?  His rationale is that he finds himself hiding out in The Rooms instead of doing the work that he needs to be doing on himself.  I guess my opinion is that you can do both simultaneously but I will grant you that I see A.A. members on a regular basis who go to a ton of meetings while not doing any of the grinding work necessary for recovery, and I don't as a rule find my relationships with them very satisfying.  They're dabblers; dabblers in the recovery world. 

Dabble:  To take part in an activity in a casual or superficial way.

Actually, as I think about it, Superficial Seaweed would be an excellent nickname.  Or maybe just The Dabbler.  As in, "Hey I saw The Dabbler at a meeting yesterday!"

Back to my rant . . . which is that in forty years of attending meetings I have never, ever, not once, heard another person state that he was going to take a year away from A.A. meetings to "work on himself."  Not saying that doesn't work or that it doesn't work for my friend but I would call it a pretty extreme approach.  The issue for me is that from time to time someone who's new will take up this banner and charge off into a "no meetings for a year" phase when I feel that is rarely a good idea for an alcoholic, particularly a new one.  And I say this fully aware of the searing irony of my insistence that we should all be free to follow whatever path to recovery that makes sense and works for us individually.  Apparently, except for taking a year off to work on yourself.  I know, I know . . . I'm a hypocrite.

This train of thought came about in the light of my relationship with the foster home guy I wrote about recently.  I don't think he's in any position to take a year off meetings.  But what do I know?  We're friends.  I'm not his keeper or parole agent.  All I can do is talk to him and hope that my wisdom hits a nerve.  Or doesn't hit a nerve at all  because I'm not the guy at this time and place who is put on this earth to give him advice or direction.

Freedom From Bondage

Sometimes the content of one of the stories in The Big Book really resonates with me.  The thinking sounds eerily similar to my own.  Here's a tidbit from the story "Freedom from Bondage:" The amount of will power exercised to control my drinking during working hours, diverted into a constructive channel, would have made me President."   

I include a similar sentiment in my remarks on occasion, this sense that I was putting far more time into getting away with not working than I would have put into . . . you know . . . just doing the work.  I was in a General Motors factory once where a supervisor said that the company bought a bunch of bicycles to help the line workers move around the huge facility more quickly.  The assumption was that these were pretty big items that would be hard to steal and consequently didn't need any theft protection.  In short order that some of the employees figured out that if they dismantled the bike and smuggled the smaller parts out piece by piece they could get away with the theft and voila! free bike!  I marveled at the fact that if this kind of ingenuity would have been put to practical use the thieves would have been promoted to positions of greater responsibility where they would have made more money and would have been able to just easily buy a new bike.

"My egocentricity had reached such proportions that adjustment to anything outside my personal control was impossible for me."

Egocentrism is the cognitive, often subconscious, inability to differentiate one's own perspective, thoughts, and feelings from those of others, leading to asn assumption that others experience the world the same way. It is a normal developmental stage in children but can persist in adults, manifesting as selfish, self-centered behavior or a failure to consider alternative viewpoints. 

There's an old sitcom called "WKRP in Cincinnati" which centered around a small radio station that played classic rock and was staffed by a very committed group of rock and roller outcasts.  Because the station wasn't making enough money the owners decided to switch the format to easy listening.  This upset the staff immensely.  As they were in a turmoil, discussing possible plans of action, the sales guy came in, a dense and tremendously egocentric buffoon, and shouted over the din: "What a minute, wait a minute!  (Comedic pause.)  "How does this affect me?"  This scene has stayed with me over the years as an example of egocentrism run amok.  We all need to aware of our own needs and wants.  This is perfectly normal and a necessary survival instinct.  But we are higher beings - or we strive to be - and this means that we learn - or we should learn - about considering the needs and wants of others.  And, taken to a spiritual extreme, putting those needs and wants above our own.

Who the fuck does that?!

"With deep shame came the knowledge that I have lived with no sense of social obligation nor had I known the meaning of moral responsibility to my fellow man."

Another great realization.  I am proud to live an independent life.  It's part of the magic that makes me who I am.  But, in my drinking days (and occasionally, still, at this later date) I took this independance to an unhealthy extreme and slowly became a selfish dude who didn't give a shit about anyone else.  Our Book is peppered with reminders that a life spent in service to others is deeply satisfying.  It reminds us that our sobriety is dependant on passing along the gift - free of charge, with no expectation of any return - that was so freely given to us.  We are exhorted to live a life of service to others . . . at our own expense . . . and anything that we lose, or think we lose, will be returned to us in a larger measure.

There's That Hairy Monster Again

I had a long conversation yesterday with a young man who grew up in foster homes, and to this day doesn't know who is parents are.  Almost every time we speak he surprises me with some behavior that I should have known about - that it would have been healthy for him to tell me about, to tell someone about, anybody, some homeless dude just to hear himself talk - but that I did not, in fact, know about.  I don't think he's trying to hide anything or to deceive anyone - I think it doesn't occur to him to talk to another person about stuff that's going on.  For instance, he seems to have problems with a fear of abandonment.  No shit, right?  To be abandoned as a child, to feel unloved, to be raised in a chaotic environment, and then try to sustain a healthy relationship with other people?  I see him careen between taking hostages and continuing to pursue relationships that clearly aren't working.  None of this makes him a bad guy or a fatally flawed one but I'm continually surprised when he casually mentions spending time with someone who behaved in a way - not long ago - that convinced him the relationship was over.  I find myself saying: "Wait . . . what?  You did what?  With that person?"  I'm more surprised that he isn't keeping me in the loop over his behavior than with the behavior itself.  I understand why two incompatible people who are driving each other mental keep returning to their own conjoined, codependent mental institution but why he doesn't think to loop me in is the cipher.  I don't think he's worried that I'll tell him not to do something - I think it just doesn't occur to him to talk to someone else about what he's doing. 

I will occasionally shoot off a text to a young woman whose father is an intractable homeless dude, a man who has been homeless for a long time and doesn't seem interested in changing, a man who is uninterested in being part of her life.  So guess what?  She's a fiercely independent person, not at all needy, who manages her life just fine most of the time.  But, on occasion, I'll get a long reply full of drama and anger that shows me that she is not used to including anyone else in what's going on.  Not me, not anyone, and I see how this isolation can really be a hindrance to a calm, collected day.   

I'm convinced that we all get used to not having something and then if we get it we're surprised at how much we missed it and how satisfying it is to have it.

Misery: A condition of great wretchedness or suffering; extreme unhappiness.  It's not dropping your ice cream cone - it's having a hairy monster steal your ice cream cone, eat it in one bite, and then kidnap you and carry you off to his cave.   

Suffering: When painful emotions get activated in response to a difficult circumstance; the state of undergoing pain, stress, or hardship.

I read these two excellent words in The Big Book recently.  When I staggered into A.A. I was suffering in misery.  Misery is what I was enduring.  I believe the old aphorism which states: "Pain is inevitable - suffering is optional."  Today this kind of wisdom, hard-earned, often makes me immune to the suffering - for the most part or at least helps me manage it - when difficult things happen to me.  I can feel the pain but I have the tools to deal with it so I don't descend into long-term suffering.

Timing Is Everything

I've been attending meetings for a couple of years now with a man who I'm friends with . . . almost friends with . . . friendly with . . . some combination of all that.  He's a smart guy with a quick wit who likes to joke around but isn't quite as funny as he thinks he is and whose timing and content needs some work . . .  some serious work.  A gentle jibe spoken to the right person at the right time can add to the laughter in The Rooms while it might appear offensive written down on a sheet of paper with no context provided.  He always tends toward humor I find pretty juvenile, more suited to middle-school boys trying to find their way in the world and not to a grown-ass man.  This is okay, too, and not that unusual.

I think he's trying too hard.  When he's not in Show Time mode he comes across as a gentle, thoughtful man.  Case in point: we have a woman who attends our meeting from who is bursting with nervous energy.  She doesn't have ants in her pants - she has fire ants in her pants, pissed fire ants, pissed ravenously hungry fire ants.  Man, I get it, I really do.  I'm also an ants-in-my-pants kind of guy.  She's a little sporadic in her attendance so many of us can see that she would probably be happier if she could get some of her fire back in the fireplace instead of incinerating the kitchen curtains, but that's her call and I'm glad to see her in any case.  Anyway, my friend, trying to be funny, compared her to Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies.  Granny was a firecracker.  Granny blew the doors off everyone else in the show.  Granny was a burn-the-house down kind of firecracker.  I get the reference and I believe that - maybe - in the right circumstances and with exquisite timing our member would have laughed at this but the comment annoyed her.  My point: clever, witty, accurate joke that landed with a clang.

I've been telling this dude lately that I've really noticed a change in him, that I believe The Program is sinking in more deeply.  I'm seeing more of the kind, gentle man and less of the trying too hard, inappropriate man.

Here's a Seaweed analogy because my wife loves my analogies.  I can hear her rolling her eyes from the back of the house as I type this.  That, of course, never stops me so here's the analogy.  I was walking along the boardwalk yesterday during a spirited high tide.  There were places where the pavement was wet so I knew to keep an eye on the strength and the fury of the incoming surf.  A woman, clearly not a local, had strayed too close to the surf while she was trying to get some pictures of the big waves and did not notice a big one coming in which splashed over the  barrier and absolutely soaked her.  A water dripping off her hair soaking.  A number of us stopped and looked, some smiles because slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass is kind of funny, but I approached her and asked if she was okay.  She was trying to laugh it off, more embarrassed than anything, calling herself an idiot over and over.  I assured her that she wasn't an idiot, that I had seen this happen many times over the years.  She handed over her dripping phone when I asked if I could dry off the salt water running off the screen.  After a few moments I told her: "Well .  .  . you made my day."  She laughed pretty hard.  But, if I had said this immediately, without coming over and being nice and helpful and sympathetic, I would have sounded like a major asshole.  My timing was spot on and it came after a burst of kindness.  I wanted her to know I was laughing with her and not at her.

Although I was kind of laughing at her.

Ha! Ha! I Mean . . . Do'h!

I'm asked from time to time why I continue to attend A.A. meetings when I'm no longer an active drunk?  I'm tempted to say: "Because I'm still an active asshole."  While that quip is meant mostly as a joke there's more than a touch of truth clinging to it.  To wit: the clerk at my grocery store who annoyed me over a trifle or the woman who brought her own personal boom box into my public pool, provoking me to behave in an incredibly childish and immature way by trying to splash water onto her audio equipment.  (Ed. Note: After I did this incredibly childish and immature thing I told on myself at a meeting.  Then . . . I've never seen her again.  Life is funny that way.  Not "ha-ha" funny but "D'oh!" funny.)  I'm grateful that I don't often pursue my minor grievances into such extremes of behavior but am aware that I'm aggrieved over minor things more stridently than I'd care to be.  

This has reminded me of a story a man told about a contentious relationship he had with a neighbor.  It was suggested that he might get some relief if he prayed for this guy every day for two weeks.  It worked - he felt some relief and was able to put the resentment behind him only to come home and see a For Sale sign in his neighbor's yard.  Do'h!  God is not a little funny - God is damned funny.

And I did share with my home group - out loud, when other people were in the room, in the language commonly spoken in the region - the story of the grocery store clerk who annoyed the holy shit out of me by doing something incredibly inconsequential.  Most of the time if I just chill and breathe and shake my internal head the pique flows away.  But I find that my community keeps me on the straight and narrow.

Art!!

 SuperK is the painter in the family.  I'm the writer.  I'm using those two terms generously.  She isn't selling $10,000 paintings in trendy SoHo galleries and I'm not super busy with book signings at this point.  But both of us are trying to tickle our creative sweet tooth - this is a good example of crashing parts of two totally distinct idioms together and ending up with an incomprehensible phrase - and staying engaged with our creative sides.  I think it's important to exercise all parts of our being, and creating something new, all by yourself, whether or not it's worthy of a book signing or a gallery opening is not really the point.   We learn to take care of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual lives.  We learn to nurture all aspects of our being.            

There's a new guy at my meeting who's a professional photographer.  I mean "professional" as in he traveled and took pictures for magazine publications, photographed weddings, took portraits, and had showings at galleries.  Today, trudging the early road of sobriety, he has a job taking pictures of newborns and their parents at a local hospital.  He's content doing this.  It cannot help but be satisfying being around people who are experiencing such a joyous moment.  I suspect, however, that at some point this kind of work won't be as satisfying as it is today.  I'm not a photographer but it sounds repetitive and not very challenging.  

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.  Maybe just a personal reminder that I have to take care of my whole being.  I don't sit in front of The TV all the time.  I think the average American has The TV on six or seven hours a day.   I don't know how you do that.  I couldn't do that when I was drinking and was too drunk to get up off the couch.  When I compose a post on my blog I usually do some initial writing and then come back to the page later to review what I've written, and I almost always change some phrases around so they're more to my liking.  To me they sound better and I'm really writing for me.  I so much appreciate that you're reading this - it fills my heart up tick-full - but the pleasure is rereading my final draft and thinking: "Hey, that's good - that's what I was trying to say."

SuperK's work as a painter has helped me understand art in a much more significant way.  She tells me often that I have a pretty good eye with a camera.  I believe that because of our talks about perspective and composition and subject I can now see - sometimes, anyway - why a photograph I've taken catches my eye in a way that most of them don't.  Any photographs I take that look good can be chalked up to dumb luck but it's gratifying to understand more fully why a picture is pleasing or why it doesn't grab my attention,         

Not Superior or an Authority of Any Sort

I find myself often talking to alcoholics who are not really All In with A.A.  I'm okay with this for the most part.  It's an odd philosophy, when you think about it, incorporating tons of different concepts and beliefs and practices that have been culled from ancient philosophies and religions and belief systems.  What strikes me is that if you don't have some kind of community to lean on then recovery is harder and sketchier.  I cannot imagine trying to recover all by myself.  I urge people to do something with other people - A.A., recovery groups, fraternal organizations, church, whatever.  There's nothing more suspicious than an alcoholic by himself, thinking.  With a lot of these people I find it's me reaching out to them and not the other way around even though the other way around is how it works best.  Why is it so hard to ask for help?  From people who have made such a mess of things that they clearly need help?

We try never to talk to newcomers from a position of superiority or authority.

I was at our local farmer's market today.  Normally, if my tab includes some change I wave it off, let the local farmer have it.  I don't want a quarter in my pocket.  I don't know what to do with change.  I think we should ban change.  I think everything should cost one dollar or multiples thereof.  Today, for reasons unknown to me, I went ahead and took the fifty cents in change, and as I was leaving the stand I walked by a little girl of ten or so who bent over and picked up a dime from the ground, and was obviously pleased at this found money.  As I walked by I held out my hand and said: "Here." and dropped the fifty cents on top of her dime, and just kept walking, not saying a word.  She was with a couple of adults when I did this and as I walked off the look of amazement on her face was just incredible.  Made my day.  Cost me a whole four bits.