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.