Taxes

Marriage: The state of being married; any close or intimate union.


SuperK and I got started on our taxes this weekend. I'm self-employed, working out of the house, and paying my own expenses. Which means that most of the 27,000 pages of the U.S. tax code apply to me somehow. We use a sophisticated tax preparation software package which walks us very carefully through the process, in minute detail, asking questions like: "What percentage of the provisions of the 1987 amendment to the Pass Through Act apply to all or part of the income earned outside of your stated school district?" There is a tab which says "Skip This Step" which we use all of the time. Or we say Various or 100%. We make stuff up just to fuck with them.


Anyway, did I happen to mention that SuperK is going to Super Special Heaven? This isn't normal heaven with good food and nice weather and angels reclining on soft clouds, strumming lutes. This is a roped off area with a tough looking angel bouncer who is weeding out the normal divine riff-raff to get to the really deserving people. "Oh, Mrs. Horseface (SuperK took my last name when we got married, which she regrets, I think), right this way. C'mon folks, make way, please. VIP coming through."

We pretty much got them done, with no serious bloodshed or broken bones, and we only had to resort to a very moderate level of lying. We lied like kids, not like drunken sailors or sociopaths. We owe money which hardly seems fair. We saved the money that we have to pay the government which is more of a blessing than we care to admit.

The government doesn't want your money. They want their money

Taking a Critical Look

Criticism: The act of making judgements; analysis of qualities and evaluation of comparative worth.


There aren't a lot of concepts in recovery with more baggage than the idea of "criticism." I'm not sure when my interpretation of criticism changed from the idea of someone taking an objective look at me and my actions to believing that I'm under vicious attack by people looking to do me grievous bodily harm. A movie critic is supposed to tell us whether or not he likes a movie. He can give good criticism. There is such a thing.

All of us know individuals who unleash torrents of negative criticism. It's easier to point out the flaws in another than to work on our own. Some of us grew up in families like that or have jobs where the environment is poisonous. After a while we stop listening. Nobody likes to be told they are messing up all of the time. It's not practical advice. Nobody is that big of a screw up. And god save the poor souls that internalize this kind of abuse.

I value constructive criticism from people who care about me. I find this advice is often more helpful than positive comments that are quickly tossed off. However, I always start off by getting defensive. I always argue my point, trying to show why I'm right and my critic is wrong. Then I settle down and try to take an objective look at what was said. People that have my best interests in mind can help me be a better person. I do, after all, make the occasional mistake. It's rare and the mistakes are so insignificant as to be almost undetectable, but they are there.

Other than that I don't listen to anything anyone has to say.

Happy Horseface

Hyperbole: Exaggeration for effect, not meant to be taken literally.

I think if I were pressed on the point I would state that I am a relatively happy person. Somewhat well adjusted with a reasonable attitude about things. I'm not Earth People well adjusted, of course, but I'm no longer a danger to myself or to society. I'm more Insane Asylum well adjusted. I would be a model citizen in the asylum, quietly watching Simon Bar Sinister duke it out with Boris Badenoff on the TV, grappling with all of the rather profound cultural references contained in those two names. The attendants in white coats would say to the visiting psychiatrists: "Oh, that's just Horseface Steve. He's a good guy."

It may seem that I am constantly at war with the world. It may, in fact, be true. What do I know? It's just that the world treats me so unfairly all of the time and it MAKES ME SO MAD.

Maybe I should tell a joke. I'm not a very good joke teller, unfortunately. I don't do very well with silly things. I rarely unleash a big deep belly laugh. It's not that I don't think things are funny, it's that I have a terrible, whinnying kind of equine laugh.

A guy is walking along the top of a cliff. He slips and tumbles over the edge. As he is plummeting to a certain death on the jagged rocks below, he reaches out and grabs hold of a branch. He starts yelling for help.
A deep, booming voice answers: "I can help you."
"Thank you," he yells. "Who are you, my friend?"
"It's God," comes the answer. "I can save you. All you have to do is let go of the branch."

The dude thinks for a minute, hanging there, arm muscles burning, grip loosening, the branch beginning to pull from the rocky soil.

"Is there anyone else up there?" he shouts.

We do not like to ask for help.

I'm Not Sure About This One

Sometimes my close "friends" in recovery intimate that I think about myself too much. Possibly because I spend so much time writing about myself without ever mentioning anyone else. It does take a lot of thinking time to develop so much material about me. I came up with three or four -- maybe five -- topics about a cold, for god's sake. There is less material on the common cold in medical school textbooks.

To these people I reply: no shit. Who else would I think about? I'm my own favorite topic. It's something that I can really sink my teeth into. It is hilarious to consider actually thinking about someone else. That can only cut into the precious time that I've set aside to think about me. Maybe I thought about someone else once in some reverse alternate universe on a strange planet in a distant galaxy thousands of eons ago. I have not done it recently.

I was in a meeting this morning where a guy that I'm not crazy about talked about the implications of the Third Tradition. His point was that he has learned to tolerate people who talk too much, talk too long, and don't really have anything to say. The Traditions ask us to let everyone who feels the need join our groups. So I'm listening to someone who talks at great length about himself at every meeting he attends complain about people who talk about themselves too much. I thought: "Wow, he's complaining about himself. He's totally oblivious." This is why I talk to my friends. I'm oblivious. I need to hear the occasional direct comment on my behavior.

Now, what did I do today that I can talk about?

Incense and circumstance -- The Color of Time

Situation: The combination of circumstances at any given moment; state of affairs.

I'm constantly amazed at how often I find myself in situations that aren't to my liking. The number of bad situations as a percentage of all situations involving me is remarkably high. It's got to be in the high nineties. Sometimes it seems to approach a hundred percent. You heard that right -- I postulate that on some days every single situation that I'm involved in has been ruined, wrecked, or sabotaged by some force, human or otherwise, that is out of my control.

After years of suffering under the firestorm of annoyances striking my furrowed brow, I decided to ponder the circumstances. It didn't seem likely that I was running into that many lousy situations. My life is pretty cushy.

Could I be misinterpreting some of the situations? Could it be that I was fouling the air of a perfectly good situation with my malodorous presence? Was it possible that I was the poison? That I could improve my attitude and consequently improve the situation?

Impossible!! I AM NOT THE PROBLEM!

P.S.: I am the problem.

Why I Do What I Do

Motive: Some inner drive, impulse, intention, etc. that causes a person to do something or act in a certain way; incentive; goal.

One snippet of advice that I get from some of my trusted friends and advisers -- and from a bunch of people who irritate the hell out of me, to be honest with you -- is to "check my motives." This is a pointless exercise. I don't waste my time checking my motives. My motives are clear to every slithering, crawling, and burrowing creature on the face of this earth: More money! More power! More sex!

The goal behind "checking my motives" isn't to find out what my motives are but rather to determine whether I'm allowing money, power, and/or sex to totally distort what I'm trying to do. And I have to look closely much of the time because my Id is totally dominating my Super-Ego. It's like Duke versus the JV squad of the Little Sisters of the Poor. My Id is posting up my Super-Ego and slam dunking on its head. I make decisions all of the time that I think are pure, only to find out that the evil little guy with horns and trident has worked his magic and totally blinded my conscious self to what I'm really trying to obtain.

This is why I talk to people. I need some help in separating what is right from what is not. I'm not capable of doing it myself. I don't trust what goes on in my own mind. There's some weird shit going on in there from time to time. Weird, out of control stuff.

The Sharks versus The Jets

Politic: Having practical wisdom; prudent; shrewd; diplomatic.
Politics: The science and art of political government; factional scheming within a group.

Both of these words derive from the Greek politikos, of a citizen.

I, for one, am having trouble reconciling these two definitions. I live in a country where the national past-time is complaining about the government. Sometimes this is quite justified, it seems to me, and sometimes it appears to be a case of people trying to ferret out the worst, most miserable tidbits of scandal and error and blowing everything up for the sake of enjoying the explosion. There is a famous parable suggesting that each of us would be much improved were we to take a break from inspecting the tiny defects in others to address our own more glaring problems. This is the essence of recovery -- powerless over people, places, and things, and responsible only for our own actions and attitudes.

From time to time I find that I really dislike a certain sports team. I'll watch them play, hoping that they lose. It doesn't make any difference whether or not I like their opponent, just that they don't succeed. This is behavior that is so petty and infantile that I can't abide it. It's a joyless exercise. I have to step away from the box and do something else. If I can't find a positive reason to do something, then I should find something else to do. I'm in for a long and miserable existence if I spend a lot of energy wishing ill on another.

It reminds me all of the times I risked doing myself great harm on the outside chance that I could take revenge on someone I believed deserved my wrath. I would take myself down if I could bring you with me. This is behavior bordering on insanity. It's like blowing up my own house in the hope that the fire might spread to your property. It makes no sense.

Apparently it's quite difficult to look on the bright side of things.

SuperK Scores

A quick update to respond to all of the interest with my cold, which I have definitely determined is not fatal, unless it's regrouping for a final massive assault. I mentioned something or other to SuperK about it, and she made a comment along the lines of: "Better update your blog then. God knows we all want to hear about it."

I'm having trouble finding a place for this one in my Win column.

Suit Up and Show Up

Soapbox: A box or carton for soap; any box used as a platform by a person making an informal speech to a street audience.

I was going to write about my cold again today which is definitely, absolutely, positively not going to kill me. It was touch and go for a while but, once again, I have defeated the common cold. Rhino Virus, my ass. Anyway, after I finished my last post about my cold -- at that point I had not been able to verify whether it was going to be fatal or not -- SuperK yelled at me from the other room: "Ach. Again with the cold?" While she didn't specifically say she was tired of me talking about my cold, I was able to imply from the tone of her voice that the topic had been covered thoroughly enough.

Last night I got up off my death bed and went to a meeting. This is a large discussion group which annoys me more often than not, for no good reason other than I'm easily annoyed by almost everything. My experience with large meetings is that there is a smallish group of people who always have to talk, usually people who don't have that much to say and take a long time to get their point across. Some of us like the Big Stage. Some of us treat meetings like a comedy improv or a soapbox upon which we can stand and pontificate, even though they aren't that funny or don't have a good point to deliver. I have never done this, of course, which is why I can afford to be so intolerant.

After the meeting ended -- a pretty good meeting, as they all are -- I turned to the man sitting next to me who had announced that he was attending this meeting for the first time, and introduced myself. Turns out he was two weeks into his recovery. So I was given the opportunity to get up on my soap box and try to carry the message to a brand new guy, which is what we are tasked to do, after all. If history is any indicator I probably didn't have much success in helping him. But that's not the point, of course, rather that the act of trying to help someone else is what keeps me sober.

Man, am I up on a soapbox.

More Interesting Thoughts About My Cold

It looks like I am going to get over my cold. It was touch and go there for a while. I was beginning to think that it was going to be one of those killer colds, fatal, brutal, taking me down hard and fast. Turns out it was just a cold, like everyone gets, and not that bad after all. I thought that I got a Special Cold.


I will not waver from my stance that getting a cold is a pointless exercise. It brings me no apparent benefits and I would prefer to bypass the whole ordeal. Sometimes I pretend that I don't have a cold and go ahead and live my life among the non-diseased general populace, who no doubt appreciate my efforts, assuming, of course, that they notice my coughing, sneezing, and general disgustiveness, which is not a given. I personally love it when someone sits down next to me when they are obviously sick. I appreciate it. I consider it a personal favor.


Sometimes I try to exercise my way out of a cold. SuperK and I argue about this to the point that I did some research to see if I could come up with a consensus scientific opinion about whether exercising while ill is beneficial or harmful. I was able to prove that most experts believe that exercise isn't going to cause you to get worse, although you'll probably be miserable doing it. They didn't propose that it would help you get better. I put this one in the Horseface Win Column. I put most things there.

I don't let facts get in the way of a good win.

Horseface Steve Vs. Super Virus in a Texas Death Match!

Cold: An acute inflammation of the mucous membranes of the respiratory passages, especially of the nose and throat, caused by a virus and characterized by sneezing, coughing, etc.

Apparently I have a cold if I'm to believe the above definition. This is by circumstance and not by choice. I would rather not have a cold than to have one, and I think it's really terribly unfair that I'm sick. I don't see the point. I don't see how I can gain an advantage in my pursuit of sex, money, and fame by contracting an illness. Oh, sure, it's OK with me and totally understandable if you get sick -- in fact, I would prefer that. I might be able to work that to my advantage.

I turned to SuperK last night, and commented: "I hope you get sick, too." This on the heels of my conversation with Willie yesterday, dominated with a lot of complaining about the unfairness of this cold which is undoubtedly going to turn into cancer or a tumor or the Ebola virus and kill me dead, and I casually remarked: "If you were here right now I'd give you a big kiss right on the lips." Willie, who thinks I'm a sexy beast most of the time, indicated that he was going to keep his afternoon appointments, irregardless of how attractive that sounded.

While I meant these comments as jokes, and I think they were received that way, I was aware that deep down in my core is Active Alcoholic Horseface who really does want to spread the misery around. It somehow made me feel better about myself if you were feeling bad, too. This is probably part of the reason that I didn't have much luck dating or holding onto a job. Wishing ill or harm on others is not an especially attractive personality trait.

I figure that when I'm sick the best thing to do is to pretend that I'm not. While I'm all for maintaining a good attitude, I don't think it helps defeat several trillion viruses. They have the numbers. They have the little keys to unlock the genetic codes of my normally healthy cells, and then to run amuck. I can only try to ignore them.

The normal antidote for a cold is to rest, drink plenty of fluids, and take aspirin. This is bullshit advice for normal people and doesn't apply to me and other SuperHumans. My normal technique is to get some extra sleep and wake up feeling better, then decide that since I feel better I can go ahead and overdo it, ignoring the fact that I feel better because I'm doing what is recommended. Yesterday, for instance, I felt well enough after 9 hours of sleep that I could just go ahead and visit a customer. Ten minutes in I lost my voice, my eyes and noise were running, and I had a dry, tickly cough. I'm sure this guy didn't notice. If it was me, I'd not buy something out of spite, even if I needed it.

I'm going to bed.

This is 21 Years?

Rigorous: Very strict or harsh,: said of rules, persons, etc.

This is one of those definitions that isn't very malleable. I like rules that I can bend and twist to my own liking. When our literature talks about rigorous honesty I don't think that the idea is to be honest when it's convenient for me. A pity, because I like things to be convenient. I don't like to do hard work.

I received an invitation for a social event from a good friend in The Program. It was something that I didn't want to do and not for any reasons attached to the friend or the event. I just didn't want to do it. In fact, I agree to do things all of the time, then regret my decision. "Damn, why did I agree to do this?" I fume, then end up having a good time in spite of myself. That's why I agree to do things.


I didn't want to say: "I'm not coming." My friend is a good man and I didn't want to hurt his feelings, which probably wouldn't have happened anyway. The real reason is that I'm a people pleaser and weak sometimes, and I succumb to the urge to tell the little white lie because I want everyone to love me and think that I'm the greatest guy to walk on the face of the earth.

I gave an excuse and my friend asked a couple of questions, which I also had to lie about. Now I'm three or four lies into my story. I'm starting to get confused and to worry about keeping all of my "facts" straight. When I hang up the phone, I realize, to my dismay, that I can't back up a crucial part of my web of lies with facts and that this information is available to my friend.

It reminded me of my drinking days. I told so many lies that I couldn't remember what was truth and what was fiction. It was exhausting and stressful keeping track of all my bullshit, and I worried about being found out. I discovered in sobriety that it's just easier to tell the truth. I don't have to remember what I said and who I said it to.

There is nothing worse to me that being caught lying. That's the main reason that I tell the truth. Not because I like to tell the truth or that I don't like lying. I like to lie very much and am quite good at it. I think I could beat a lie detector test. I think I could fool the machine.

D-Oh!

I'm not feeling too well today and work was a huge pain in the ass. Doesn't that sound like the opening line of one of the great novels of Tolstoy or Earnest Hemingway? My patience begins to fail me whenever I get a cold, and I have the patience of a gnat on LSD when I'm well. I feel like I've failed somehow when I'm ill. I get depressed and anxious. Maybe I think I'm dying. Maybe I think that if I was doing it right that I could fight off all of the bad microbes. It's my duty to not get sick.

So naturally today I find myself in several really annoying situations at work. I'm not sure if they were really that bad or if I wasn't in the mood to be annoyed. Probably a little of both. I have to be careful when I'm tired, sick, and irritated. I'm a loose cannon when I'm running on all cylinders. I know better than to send any emails or make any phone calls. It doesn't work out very well.

I sent off some emails. I bet it doesn't work out very well.

Serenity Steve? Serenity Steve!

Serenity: The quality or state of being serene; calmness; tranquility; repose.


It's odd for my monkey mind to contemplate serenity. I have been in the blogosphere for about 15 months and this is the first time that I have looked up the definition. This doesn't surprise me in the least. The idea of serenity doesn't full up too much of my internal memory. I never considered naming my world famous rock band Horseface Steve and The Serenity Five. I was drawn to names like Screaming Insanity or The Four Horsemen of the Insane Apocalypse. And the fact that I never even picked up an instrument didn't stop me from coming up with band names that had nothing to do with serenity

During my Quiet Time this morning I interrupted a pleasant reverie about how to grind my enemies to dust beneath my leather jackboot or spend the millions of dollars that I'm going to win in the lottery that I have never bought a ticket for and tried to actually feel serenity. It's really quite pleasant. It's an absence of turmoil. I know, I know, we all love the turmoil. We love getting all riled up and then trying to drag everyone down into the chaos with us.

Stop doing that.

More Bitching About Working

I'm always so surprised to find out that some things take effort. Work, for instance, frequently takes up a lot of the time that I have set aside for sitting at a coffee shop, reading, or sitting at a coffee shop reading. It's so time consuming and so beneath me, this activity of working. I'm hoping this summer that a beautiful garden of delicious, nutritious vegetables crops up in my backyard, and that someone comes over and takes care of the weeding and watering, then harvests the bounty and cooks them up for me, for my own personal enjoyment. I would take the time to put out some humorous little signs for this worker, saying witty things like "Gardeners do it in the dirt" or "Horseface Steve's Garden of Eden." The worker could have a nice chuckle while breaking up large clumps of clay and fending off an attack of grub worms and eggplant blight.


This week I traveled to Columbus, Lexington, and Indianapolis because apparently I am under some obligation to earn a living. This put a huge, huge crimp in my free time. I was tired at the end of each day. The bad drivers had regrouped and were harassing me unmercifully, like the feral mutants hot on the trail of Mel Gibson in "Mad Max," as I completed yet another day of mistake free driving. My expectation this week was for Paris, London, and Barcelona, but it didn't work out that way.

Serenity Stan

Yesterday Serenity Stan called to remind me that he had reached a significant milestone in his sobriety. He also said, and I quote: "I can't thank you enough for all of your unbelievably significant and profound help during this time. I was lost; yea, verily, lost I say! until you started taking my calls." (Fair disclosure: I'm lying. Maybe he thanked me. I'm not sure. I erase most people's messages as soon as I hear their voice, figuring that they aren't going to say anything that I find interesting. I didn't take his call, either. That's why god created call waiting.)


I thought: "Is this a great program or what? I don't even have the courtesy to remember my friend's anniversary and he calls to thank me." Yea! Yea for me!! If you don't think that's amazing, try it with your spouse's birthday this year. Don't buy a gift or a card; don't sing Happy Birthday; wait for her to thank you for being such a wonderful spouse. And videotape it, because this I want to see.


I guess the downside is that a few years back when someone came up to me and said: "What's wrong with Stan, anyhow?" I could say: "Well, he's new." After a few years I migrated to: "Well, he's pretty new." This evolved into: "He's got some tough stuff going on and he's trying pretty hard." Now I say: "Stan who?"

"Your're a bad sponsor. You can't post that." -- SuperK.


Happy anniversary, Stan.

We Are Family.

I had some dealings with my birth family last week, and the proceedings weren't to my liking. When things don't go the way that I want them to I have to tamp down the urge to bring out my flamethrower, which also is a machine gun and a tactical atom bomb. It is, after all, NOT MY FAULT. Nothing ever is, and I have the evidence to prove it, unless everything works out well and then I've been known to quickly step in and take all of the credit.

I tried to behave well -- with mixed results -- and then thought it prudent to review my actions with trusted friends and servants. My sponsor, who spends a lot of time in his retirement doing nice things for people who are less fortunate then he is -- for free, I may add, which apparently is the definition of volunteering, so I'm not going to pull out my Webster's to research that word. I'm afraid that I would find a whole lot of information that I'm not interested in -- always says: "Principles before personalities, Horseface. Principles before personalities." So obviously I didn't call him. That kind of advice I can do without when I'm standing there with my lit blowtorch.

Then I thought of Shorty, my go-to guy on family matters. He doesn't analyze things or make a fuss or throw a fit, he just quietly makes himself available to be of service. That doesn't mean that he lets people take advantage of him, it's that he keeps things simple. For instance, if he's at a family gathering with a few folks that rub him the wrong way, he heads to the kitchen and peels parsnips or scours pans, in the company of scullery maids, I assume. I, on the other hand, take a position in the family room where I can keep a close eye on anyone that annoys me. That way I can spend my time judging people or trying to start arguments about matters that are unimportant to me.

I think that most people are interested in getting their own way. And I don't want that to sound sinister. There's something to be said for trying to collect a little pleasure and eject a little pain. I don't think that my family is any worse or any better than the average person. I don't want to see this. I want to start hollering like a five year old: "But he started it! He hit me first!" I don't want to cede any territory that I have already conquered, even if I feel better in the long run.

There's a good reason that we have a chapter called The Family Afterward.

Horseface Steve: Bleeding Deacon

I attended a speaker discussion meeting this morning. The format is for a speaker to read a couple of passages from the Big Book and then share for about fifteen minutes. At that point the floor is opened up for a general discussion on the chosen topic. It's a big meeting for 7:30 AM on a Saturday. Apparently it's a lot easier to get up when you don't have a blinding headache from a night of carousing.


At the table in front of me a guy was reading the newspaper as he waited for the meeting to start. Unfortunately for both of us he continued to read the newspaper after the proceedings got under way. Normally, I look favorably on reading of any kind, but during a meeting I'm less charitably disposed. If you want to read the newspaper, fine, go somewhere else and read the newspaper. This isn't Program etiquette per se; it's normal courtesy. There's a speaker who is sharing from the heart about deeply personal matters and I'm going to sit there and read the sports page? It's rude. It's like saying I'm not going to let someone talking about their recovery from alcoholism interrupt my analysis of last night's box score.

Now the quandary: run my mouth or practice acceptance? Not much of a quandary, actually. My mouth is always turned on. It's always running. All I have to do is stomp on the accelerator and I lay rubber for 50 yards, even if there's only 40 yards of asphalt between me and a brick wall. I closed my eyes, began to breathe deeply, and tried to meditate away my self-righteous indignation. This is a meeting, for god's sake. I'm here to get better, not worse. I don't want to increase my agitation.

Finally, I take a peek and see that the guy next to him has picked up a section. I floor it. I lean in, quietly, discreet: "Are you kidding me? You're reading the newspaper?" The original antagonist starts to smile at the joke then realizes I'm serious, looks back down at the paper. Number Two sets down his section.
The ringleader cracks: "Well, you got one of us to stop."
"Hey, 50% isn't bad," I retort.


I'm furious at this point. I hear nothing for 10 minutes but the raging argument in my head as I plan how I'm going to slice this guy to pieces after the meeting ends. He very deliberately reads the newspaper for the entire meeting but I can see he's pissed. One table over is a woman attending her first meeting. What is the message there? That it's OK to read? Maybe we should turn a TV on in the corner. Maybe everyone at the speaker's table should bring reading material. I-pods, cell phones, it's all on the table.

I did manage to get my emotions under control. The woman talking did a fine job and this stimulated a good conversation about the topic. But what was right? Is it my responsibility to say something? Nobody else did. But, you know, I really am pretty passionate about this Program. I think we need to show some restraint but we do need to make sure the thing works right.

I'm glad I did it.

I'm Going Down, Down, Down. Into the Ring of Fire.

Energy: Potential forces; inherent power; capacity for vigorous action.

Oh, I have some capacity for vigorous action all right. My problem is that I often apply the vigor to the action in a manner totally out of proportion to the vigor required. I have a big hammer and I'm not afraid to use it. Action is fine as long as there is some SANITY to the activities, and it also helps if action needs to be taken, which is often not the case.

I like to spring into action. Why think about what I'm going to do? It's time-consuming and boring, something for the adults sitting at the big table to do. I'm down here at the card table with the kids. If there is something to be done let's take off at a million miles an hour, six guns a-blazing, warning klaxons blaring, manning the electronic bullhorns: "Get out of my way, you dumb asses! I'm in the midst of some action!"

Action can be good. Action is like fire. Fire can keep me warm. Fire can burn all of the skin off of my knuckles, and I speak from experience on both accounts. I don't like to start a small fire. I like to gather a lot of highly combustible materials and soak them in gasoline or kerosene or some other unstable accelerant and lob a whole pack of lit matches onto the pile. Let's get warm.

This is why I go to meetings. I have friends -- some of whom also like to play with matches and gasoline -- who aren't afraid to tap me on the shoulder when I'm off in my own little world, which is where I live most of the time. They might point out that we are inside or that it's 85 degrees outside and we're currently not in need of a conflagration.

Curse you, friends.

Of Fairies and Layla and Paperback Writers

Yesterday I started off playing the riff to “Smoke on the Water.” Today, I think I’ll try “Layla” or maybe “Paperback Writer.” I realize that I’m dating myself by referencing these old songs, but I can't seem to stop. Layla! You got me on my knees!

What's funny is that I seem to keep coming back, over and over, to a few concepts that are important to me. While I’m eternally in search of the easier, softer way I want it to be very complicated and arcane. That way I can pretend that I don’t understand the instructions or that I’m somehow smarter than you or better informed on a particular topic, like How to Stay Sober. The other issue is that I’m so distracted by unimportant things -- And I want to be a paperback writer. Paperback writer! Paperback writerrrrrrr!! -- that I can’t remember what I did yesterday, so I repeat myself, saying the same things again and again, making the exact same point.

At this moment I’m in the back of a conference room attending a seminar. I’m supposed to be assisting the instructor. Clearly, my assistance is not too impressive.

Anyway, the riff today is that my problems are very rarely that important. For instance, the economy is not great right now so the money that I have saved for retirement in my 401K has lost value. And the housing market is just as bad so I suspect that my home isn’t worth as much as it was when I bought it. My sponsor asked: “Are you trying to sell your house?” When I admitted that I wasn’t he asked: “So what do you care?”

The acid test today is whether or not I can bring up a problem as a topic at my jail meeting. I didn’t know what a 401K was when I was drinking. I certainly didn’t have any money to invest for my retirement. If I had money I was investing it in the retirement account of my local drug dealer or helping finance the guy who owned the corner bar. I didn’t have a house, either or a car or anything else. Today I have a nice house and I’m making the payments on it, mostly on time if I’m not too distracted by old, not that good rock and roll songs to remember to write a check, which is no sure thing. The mortgage holder is happy to collect late fees so they don’t seem to mind too much.

Fairies wear boots and ya gotta believe me!
I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes.
Fairies wear boots and ya gotta believe me!
Yeaaaaaahhhhhh!

Ozzie was no poet.

I Been Working on the Railroad

Riff: A melodic phrase, repeated again and again, often used as the main theme, as in a final chorus, or as background.

I find myself going back to a few ancient riffs over and over again. The longer I'm sober the more I can reduce what I need to do down to a couple of important things. I'm like an old guitarist, sinking into senility, unable to remember any of my favorite songs except for the opening cords of "Smoke on the Water" or "All Right Now."

I heard another great lead last night -- and aren't all of them great in some form or fashion? -- where the theme was Do The Work. It's amazing how often this comes up in meetings from people I admire, which means, I assume, that Doing The Work is important. I probably don't need to point out that I'm not big on work as a general rule. Instead of working The Steps I'd prefer to think about working The Steps. Thinking I'm good at. Work I'm not.

We're complicated folks trying to work a simple program.

More

More: Greater in amount, quantity, or degree.

I know what's best for me in the long run. No doubt about it. That's a statement of fact. That's an indisputable truth, with a strong foundation and a long history of successful results. If I think it's going to work out well it's going to work out well. If I see storm clouds gathering on the horizon, then it shall rain upon my head. All I require is more money, more power, more sex. All I need to avoid is anything painful or unpleasant, or anything requiring any work or effort whatsoever.


I know better than my trusted friends, advisers, and sponsors in The Fellowship. I know better than God. Why would I make a bad decision concerning myself? I love myself, and would never willingly do anything that might cause me any pain or discomfort. For instance, I like money. I think that I should have a whole lot of it. I have never made a bad decision when it comes to material things. When I get what I want it's always in everyone's best interest, even if I have to trod upon your toes to get where I want to go.


Why in the world would I think that someone wiser than I am, maybe with more experience on a particular issue, maybe with more discretion and insight than I have, might be able to steer me in the right direction? Ridiculous. Why would I think that God, who rescued me from a miserable alcoholic existence, spiraling down into the bowels of Mordor, might want to take care of me in the long run? I hate the long run! I want the short run! I don't want to run at all! I don't even want to watch other people run!


God has not taken me this far to suddenly drop me on my head. I should be wearing my helmet anyhow.

One , Two, Three! As easy as A B C!

As I look back over the history of my battle with King Alcohol I am able to roughly discern three phases, as long as I am wearing my reading glasses, which I usually have trouble locating even though I own 27 pairs, most of them broken or damaged because I forget where they are and sit on them or set something heavy on them or trod upon them, grinding them into dust.

Phase One was the Pink Cloud Period. I was in so much pain and my life was such a mess that it was relatively easy to make dramatic gains or to alleviate tremendous pain with simple actions. It's as if I was walking around with hundreds of barbed thorns in my head, courtesy of a losing battle with a bramble patch, which I wandered into in a blackout. I had so many thorns and they had been traveling with me for so long that I didn't pay any attention to them anymore. People would say: "Man, that looks painful." I pretended that I didn't know what they were talking about. I got a lot of relief when a thorn was plucked out, even though the barbs took some flesh with them when they came out.

Phase Three, which has arrived after a lot of painful thorn removal, might be called I'm Stayin' Out of That Ol' Bramble Patch. I have been in the bramble patch, I have removed a lot of thorns, and I have no interest in running naked through the sticker bushes, despite the siren call drawing me in. It's nice most of the time. I'm calm, or calmish or calm-like, on occasion. Oh, sure, I take off running from time to time, shedding garments as I go, and plunge in without thinking. That'll probably never change.

Phase Two was a little more problematic. Let's call this the I Am So Sick of This Bullshit stage. The big, easy gains had evaporated, the deep serenity of the Old Timers was still on the distant horizon, and the whole thing reeked of tedium. Some of the big thorns had been removed but a lot of smaller, many-barbed, poison-tipped, deeply-embedded, infected thorns were still in place. I didn't always feel like a million bucks when I left -- like when I was newly sober -- and I didn't often feel like a million bucks when I arrived -- as I do now, most of the time. Some of the time, anyway. OK, now and then.

This may be why a lot of people drift away at this point in their sobriety. It feels like a lot of hard work, which many of us abhor. It's a time to be vigilant.