Reasons. Not Excuses.

We seldom do anything with great joy.  Most of us are animated only when it serves a purpose and not because of a genuine enthusiasm.  We're too full  of ifs and oughts to find reasons to rejoice.  Sometimes a change can jar us into an awareness of life, and that life is intended to be much simpler than what we make it out to be.  If only we can move out of fear and be able to enjoy life minute by minute.

I have no friends from college or any places of employment pre-recovery.  That's a solid twelve years.  That's a long period of time to develop some relationships and it's an amazing fact that I was not able to develop any at all.  I was busy for much of this time but not that busy.  I'm out of the Excuses business and into the Reasons business and the reason is this: I was drinking and using.  By myself much of the time and when I was with people I was still by myself, more or less, the goal always being to get away from these people so I could drink and use.  While I admit to being a liar and an embellisher and exaggerator I am not making this up.

Flight S.O.B.'s Unite!

Cherokee wisdom for today: "Lovely or unlovely, nothing stays the same.  It cannot.  It grows into something newer and better, or it gives why where it is.  Life is a living, moving force at every moment.  We would not have that change - but to live happily we must change.  We cannot allow ourselves to crystallize until we are inflexible.  There is too much to shatter us if we cannot bend.  To enjoy the present moment is to have the innate knowledge that the next one and the next can be even better."

The only constant in life is change.  I gotta adapt or it'll kill me.

I maintain - again - that One Day At A Time is a good basis for living well.  Right here - Right now.  If I had to base my existence on one concept it would be the imperative to be present.  Not in the future where terrible things are happening to me or in the past reliving the terrible things I did.

I am still obsessed with the workings of the human mind.  Maybe this is a type of control obsession.  Maybe this is because the human mind is such a weird-ass, unpredictable beast, making choices for reasons that of which we are blissfully unaware and running the show more than we'd like to admit.  If you think I'm making this up I suggest meditation.  THEN you'll see who's running the show.  Spoiler: it's not the You that you think you are.  It's this force that is darting and veering and screaming into the night.

I listened to a podcast that explored time and time management.  One of the central premises is that the people who struggle the most in this arena are those with too little time to get everything accomplished and - oddly enough - people with too much time on their hands.  The psychologist involved suggested keeping a journal where one logs personal activity separated into half hour increments.  I thought: "Why not?"  I'm one of those people with a lot of free time and I'm often surprised at the end of the day how much I accomplish and - more irritating - how much I don't get done.  It seems to me there's usually enough time to do all of my stuff even accounting for time-consuming chores - like grocery shopping and car repairs and house cleaning - as well as serendipitous interruptions - like a neighbor stopping by to chat or a phone call from an irritating member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Here's my take after a week or two of doing this: I am a fidgety, fidgety son of a bitch.  I have trouble staying on task for a half hour at a time with the result that it's not unusual to look at a segment, see a thing listed that should take fifteen minutes, and realize I don't know what I did the rest of the time.  Can you see why sitting still on a twelve hour flight is roughly equivalent to a root canal with no anesthesia?  Part of this, I think, is due to the fact that I have an overactive imagination and my mind is always flitting here and there, and part of it is because I'm unfocused.

Go Home and Come Back

"Jealousy is never hidden. It is totally ignorant of the fact that we have to go within ourselves for things that lift or lower us.  What belongs to each of us has nothing to do with anyone else.  To be jealous is to be miserable.  If we can't hold our own we can go home and get ready and come back.  But to have animosity toward everyone who threatens cannot cultivate good in anything."

My Buddy Chivas

Life gets lifey sometimes.

If you keep doing what you've been doing you'll keep getting what you've been getting.

Tolerant:  Showing willingness to allow the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with; a willingness to accept the belief, habits, feelings, or behaviors of another group, culture, etc. as legitimate even if they differ from one's own.  (Ed. Note: Funny how the word 'willingness' keeps popping up . . .  )

From the text of Tradition Three: "Our Foundation office asked each group to send in its list of 'protective' regulations.  The total list was a mile long.  If all those rules had been in effect everywhere, nobody could have possibly joined A.A. . . "

Here are a few phrases that pop up after that surprising and hilarious sentence: "pretty intolerant;" "After all, isn't fear the true basis of intolerance?"  "Could we then foresee that troublesome people were to become our principal teachers of patience and tolerance?"

When I ask people who have gone out why they picked up a drink again, what their mind set was, what happened, the reasons are mundane, insignificant, and boring.  Lazy and self-serving reasons.  The reasons are so shitty that they're actually excuses and not reasons.  No one - I repeat: no one - has ever told me that a relative just died in a car accident or that they recently learned they were diagnosed with some horrible, fatal disease.  They just drink.  They want to drink, they're not spiritually fit, they're not plugged in, and they just drink.  One young guy who had accumulated about ninety days was at a gathering, saw a bottle of Chivas Regal, and poured himself a drink.  "Seemed like a good idea," he told me.

That's his new nickname.  Chivas.  "Good morning, Chivas, good to see you!"  I can be such an asshole.

I told a Chicago guy once that I liked to party.  He said that I was drinking, not partying.  I mentioned to another Chicago guy that I didn't know why I kept relapsing.  He said that I wasn't relapsing, I was continuing to drink, that you had to actually quit drinking in the first place to relapse.

Irritating, these Chicago guys.

But a lot of irritating guys listened patiently when I talked - if by "talking" you mean "spewing nonsense" - and planted good ideas in my head, ideas that I took and used to build a good life.  They never told me what I had to do - they told me what they did and how it worked out for them, the implication being that I could try it out or not or I could try something totally different, that the idea was to try things different than the ones I was currently using which clearly weren't working out very well.

The Anvils of Experience

"There is no organization which more jealously guards the individual's right to think, talk, and act as he wishes.  No A.A. can compel another to do anything.  Nobody can be punished or expelled.  The A.A. member has to conform to the principles of recovery.  His life actually depends upon obedience to spiritual principles.  He learns that the clamor of desires and ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group.  It becomes plain that the  group must survive or the individual will not."  They add the phrase "anvils of experience."  Isn't that a great phrase?  

The anvils of experience.  Bill came up with some great phrases.

Hope and Love

You can be loving all the time.  This is your choice.  You may not have a reason to love, but you can love because to love makes you so happy.  Love in action only produces happiness.  Love will give you inner peace.  It will change your perception of everything.  Suffering?  It makes you feel safe because you know it so well.  But there is really no reason to suffer.  The only reason you suffer is because you choose to suffer.  If you look at your life you will find many excuses to suffer, but a good reason to suffer you will not find."  Toltecs, baby, Toltecs.  These guys had some serious shit going  on.

My little walk through the Toltec book is coming to an end.  The author is concluding with a couple of prayers and this is his intro to the prayer itself: "Please take a moment to close your eyes, open your heart, and feel all the  love that comes from your heart.  I want you to join me in your mind and in your heart, to feel a very strong connection of love."

Our neighbor has a rescue dog that was plucked from the mean streets of Mexico.  This dog is the happiest dog in the history of the universe.  The name she was given in the rescue kennel was Hope and a more appropriate name I cannot imagine.  Her tail is in constant motion and she is overjoyed - thrilled! - to see anyone and everyone.  It looks like she is meeting everyone for the first time or that the person approaching is her best friend in the world, someone she hasn't seen in forever.

I fancy myself a dog person.  I usually lower myself to the dog's level - often plopping my ass right down on the pavement - and I whisper sweet nothings into their ears.  Dogs know love and they really respond to this.  I'm acquainted with a number of these animals who react enthusiastically as soon as they pick up my scent.  But Hope?  This dog thinks I'm god.  I also give her a mini carrot which she receives as if it were choice filet mignon so this might have something to do with her affection but - seriously - she loses her shit when she sees me.  It's one of the highlights of my day to see this dog.  It's a perfect manifestation of love in my eyes.

The World Doesn't Want to Wait

 "Each effort makes the next time a little easier until there is maximum strength or full growth.  Some things challenge our very existence.  It is the nature of things.  But every effort we make weakens the challenge.  If we will not give up, but move and rest, move and rest, the breakthrough comes."

It is the nature of things.  Damn, I love that concept.  There are so many variations.  It is what it is.  There is no explanation that is going to satisfy the human inclination to be frustrated at misery and pain and death.  The good news is that we get to feel everything and the bad news is that we get to feel everything.

It reminds me of the young woman who found herself in a work situation - still bartending, can't imagine how miserable it would be to have to go to an establishment that sells alcohol while you're trying to tame the almost uncontrollable urge to drink alcohol - where she had to deal with a belligerant and drunken patron.  She was clearly upset the following day, recounting for the meeting how the incident ignited a strong urge to drink which, thankfully, she fought through.  I spoke with her briefly after the meeting and passed along the bromide that because she successfully overrode the urge to drink she is much stronger and the next time she'll be able to override the urge to drink more easily.  I don't know her life circumstances well enough to suggest she find another job.  Her family may really need the money and she may have to put up with a job that involves drinking for a while.

"The world doesn't want to wait.  The fast dollar, the quick thrill, the big wind.  It all falls down.  The best idea of all is when we want to do something and do it well we shouldn't let the world know.  We should keep our heads down, our mouths shut, and everything else in high gear."