Sins, Compounded

This doggone program.


Everything keeps coming back to me working on me, and being honest with myself.  I hate being honest with myself almost as much as I hate being honest with other people.  I'm the easiest person in the world for me to lie to because I believe every word that I'm saying, but I'm suspicious of everyone else, certain that they're trying to pull off something sneaky.  


To thine own self be true, to coin a phrase that has already been thoroughly coined.  Being a Half-Measures guy I like to try to skirt the rules, to find loopholes and exploit technicalities.   I'm different.  I'm special.  I get to behave differently than everyone else.


"Yes, I realize that's wrong," I'll say.  "But here's why it's OK for me to do it."


I'm the guy cheating the blind widow out of her life savings then offering up an explanation that sounds plausible to me.  I imagine that this is why there aren't any guilty people in prison.  With very little effort I can justify almost anything.


To wit: I'm back in The Old City for a week.  When I lived here I joined a national exercise club, so I was able to transfer my membership to The New City when I relocated.  This organization has several options for its members.  One of them restricts access to a single location and a more expensive option allows the member to use any gym, anywhere, any time.  I purchased the cheap membership, preferring to keep my Fear of Financial Insecurity alive and well-fertilized.


The first time I came back I strolled into my old club and was pleasantly surprised when they waved me in.  Technically, this is stealing.  Stealing is one of those words that has no nuance.  You are stealing, or you are not.  I was taking something that I hadn't paid for.  My thinking -- never a good thing for me to rely on -- is that it's their responsibility to catch me if they don't want me to do something.  I rationalize that I'm only using one club at a time, so what's the difference?  If I was using two clubs simultaneously then I could see their point.


I did this several more times, always being admitted, vaguely uneasy, aware that I wasn't behaving well.  I was doing something wrong and justifying it to myself.  The membership options, I don't believe, allow for special Horseface behavior.  I so love special dispensations for my bad behavior.  It's the old red light thing -- I think I should be able to go through red lights if the intersection is clear because I'm such a good driver.


Yesterday, the desk attendant called my attention to the fact that I only had single club access.


"I'm moving mumble mumble new state mumble," I replied, indistinctly.
"You're moving here?" he asked.
"No, mumble moving there mumble," I feinted.
"Oh, OK, " he said.  "Don't worry about it."


Lying is another one of those black and white defects.  I used to believe that if I didn't actually say the lying words then I was telling the truth.  It didn't matter to me if you believed something that wasn't true, even though the end result was the same as if I had told a whopper.  Sins of omission, I believe these are called.


Now I've stolen, and lied to cover it up.  I could see the desk clerk working on the computer as I swam.  I imagined that he was scrolling back through my attendance history.  He knew I was a liar.


This is why I try to behave well today.  So I don't have to imagine such things.

Something Something Free Will Something

Herr Luber passed along this advice to me not long ago:  "Something something we must move forward or die something else."  


I remember this quote very well and really appreciated the reminder, even though I don't think any such quote exists.  I think we may have made it up in a smoky haze late one evening, long, long ago on a distant planet, in a galaxy far, far away.  But I'm a restless guy and I'll take any advice that appeals to me and fix it in my mind as fact.  I'm not often bothered when the fact is really fiction, as long as I believe it is true.


Does this have anything to do with free will?  I've been pondering the concept again.  I've been wondering about my will and god's will and which is which and how the %$#!! do you know, anyhow?  Our literature talks about the proper use of our will.  I'm such an expert in the aberrant use of free will that I was stunned to find out there was a proper use.  The particular Step that I'm referencing encourages me to move forward, but slowly and in as much stillness as I can muster up.    It seems to me that I can't sit on my haunches and let the world just happen.  It seems that I have to do some work and make some choices.  


It's OK to kick the ball forward.  Nothing wrong with kicking the ball; in fact, I think we're supposed to kick the ball.  I have learned to quit kicking the ball off high cliffs or into high voltage electric equipment or the faces of other people.  I've learned to get a sense of whether or not the ball has been kicked in a good direction.  I never used to know.  Now I make a choice, after having sought counsel from friends and my higher power, and then I see what shakes out.  It's not good or bad, anymore, it's kicking the ball down the road.


Suddenly, I feel like playing soccer.

More

More and More: A constantly increasing amount, quantity, degree, or number (of persons or a specified thing).


"The problem is that these instincts, so necessary for our existence, often far exceed their proper functions.  Powerfully, blindly, many times subtly, they drive us, dominate us, and insist upon ruling our lives."  


This I lifted verbatim out of the literature.  No way I could make something up that good.  Right out of the part of the literature that talks about making an inventory, too.  "We eat, drink, and grab for more of everything than we need, fearing we shall never have enough."  We grab and grab and grab for more of everything than is our fair share.  Than is more than the fair share of half a dozen large men and a couple hundred little children put together.  


Because I have a terrible forget-er I try to frequently remind myself that life is a relatively simple affair.  I ask too much of it most of the time.  It's simple and I complicate it.  I try to fill it with enough stuff to satisfy my outlandish expectations.  The fact of the matter is that it has only been in the last 100 years or so that humans had the time to do anything but keep themselves fed and safe at night. 


Some more of that, please. 

Like a Thief in the Night

The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Fear is an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence is shot through with it.  I have always liked the reference to garment making in this particular allegory about fear.  I can just see the fear colored thread interwoven with all of the normal threads that make up the suit of my insane existence. 

Sometimes we think fear should be classified with stealing -- it seems to cause us more trouble. 

I'm not going to vouch for the accuracy of these plagiarized thoughts.

I'd say fear is like a thief in the night except it's more like a thief in broad daylight most of the time, wearing a black T-shirt with the word "Thief" printed on the front and the back, in orange day-glo capitalized letters, carrying a black bag that says "Swag."  My fear is not worried about sneaking around in the dead of night, stealthily.  It kicks down the fucking door in broad daylight and takes what it wants.

Ding-Dong.
"Who's there?"
"A thief."
"Oh, please come in.  Are you hungry?  Can I fix you something?  Would you like to live in my attic, rent-free?  You can use the basement if you want a place to practice death anthems with your death themed rock band."

That's not much of an exaggeration, actually.

Interpreting the Icons, Working The Steps

The topic at today's meeting revolved around the importance of Working The Steps.  I love this topic, except when I'm not Working The Steps, which is distressingly often, at which point I hate this topic.  I need to be reminded to do the work.  So often I show up at a few meetings and daydream when anyone but me is talking, and I start my day by sitting down with a cup of coffee and daydreaming about how awful life is treating me, and I call my sponsor once a week, daydreaming whenever he starts to suggest a healthy course of action all the while withholding the important info about what's going on in my life, and I call this Working The Steps.  I need to be reminded that the good stuff I do on a daily basis is simply there to remind me to Work The *&%!! Steps.

I lose track of the difference between having my needs met and having my wants satisfied.  This is a bad thing to lose track of.  I don't think very well when I begin demanding far more of life than is reasonable.

When SuperK and I were driving home from our little hiking trip an alarm on my car went off indicating that there was a problem with one of the tires.  This really annoyed me because, as I have droned on about at length, a few of the tires on my car were damaged during transit to the New City and had to be replaced, at great expense to me.  Actually, at great expense to the insurance company but let's not take the focus off of me and how badly life is treating me.  I stopped and filled the tire with air, which seemed to fix the problem.

Yesterday, on the way for a cup of coffee, the alarm went off again.  To me, this indicated a more serious problem with the tire.  The first alarm might have been caused by a good tire needing air because of normal leakage; the second alarm for a tire that had just been filled with air wasn't a good sign.

This ruined the next few hours for me.  I was pissed about this.  Now here's the funny part: the icons that light up when something is amiss with the car look like Egyptian hieroglyphics drawn by an alcoholic who has taken too much acid.  I really have no idea what they're trying to tell me.   I have often wondered why they don't just tell me what's wrong instead of forcing me to interpret hieroglyphics.

SuperK: "That doesn't look like a flat tire icon.  I don't know what the *&$!! that's supposed to be.  Did you look it up in the manual?"
Horseface: "Do you think I should look it up in the manual?"
SuperK: "What, and ruin a good hissy fit?"

Ahem.  Not a flat tire icon. 

I have no further comment at this time. 

The Promises

The Promises: A series of oral or written agreements to do or not to do something; vows

The famous 9th Step Promises sounded like a raw deal to me when I was getting sober.  I realize today that they are a fully cooked deal.  They are marinated in alcohol for a period of time and then pushed into a low temperature oven for a good slow cooking.  It takes a long time in that oven before the food is anything approaching edible.

Mostly, I'm glad that I'm able to spend so much of my time in the present minute.  I'm not in the past, regretting regrettable things and I'm not in the future, suffering unimaginable pain.  It all works out OK.  It's nice to have the brain idle down.  It's not totally in control.
It's mostly in control, of course.

An Honest Lie

Truth:  That which is true; statement, etc., which accords with fact or reality.

The topic at the meeting this morning was honesty.  The sub-topic was how our searching and fearless written moral inventory can help us see how dishonest we have been, both in our relationships with others and in how we perceive ourselves.

The discussion, of course, centered around lying.  Alcoholics usually take a positive topic and explore it from the darkest side imaginable.  I love talking about lying and I'm telling the truth when I say that, which is no mean feat for me.  I don't enjoy talking about eliminating faults by working the 12 Steps nearly as much.

It can be hilarious listening to people who have spent their entire lives evading the truth try to explain how they have changed their behavior.  I think if you could receive a doctoral degree in Lying I'd currently be at Harvard, and not as a student: I'd be an instructor teaching advanced courses.  It would be almost impossible to get in my classes. 

I try not to lie today.  I try not to lie all the time, anyway.  The fact of the matter is that I hate getting caught in a lie a lot more than I love telling the truth.  I'm a good liar.  I enjoy lying and I have worked hard at my craft over the years.  I have a natural aptitude for it.  Really, I haven't tried to whittle down my lying for any other reason than I hate to make the amends when someone catches me in the lie.

George Costanza famously said: "Remember: it's not a lie if you believe it."  It has been a lot easier eliminating the conscious lies I used to tell other people than coming to grips with the lies I told myself.  Boy, could I justify some really awful things.  I had convinced myself, for instance,  that when I was drinking no one knew about it, or that I was only hurting myself, or that my faults were really my reaction to the bad behavior of other people.

In the Costanza episode, Jerry was trying to beat a police lie detector machine, and he asked George to teach him how to lie.   George snorted, and said: "That's like saying to Pavarotti: 'Teach me to sing like you.' "  I know what he meant.

Most of this aimless rant has been in good fun.  While I really do try to be honest today, both with others and with myself, I find that simple exaggerations or overstatements pop out of my mouth before I know what happened.  I have to apply just a little more icing or scrape off just a touch more dirt.  I have to be a little bit better than I really am.

The best thing about telling the truth is that I don't have to remember what I said anymore.

Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.

Let Us Pray -- uhh!

The meetings that I attend regularly in The New City are on a bus line convenient to a Salvation Army rehab center.  So we get a lot of guys who are in the Salvation Army program, whatever the hell that is.  I don't even really know what the Salvation Army is, let alone any programs they may or may not have.  I get the vague impression that they do good things.  I always put money in the red bucket when I pass someone ringing a little bell around the holidays.  Folding money, too; not change, even though I disguise the one dollar bill by crumpling it up and stuffing it in the slot as quickly as I can.

I don't know this man that well, having met him only a couple of months ago, but I was touched that he thought enough of SuperK and me to invite us to his graduation.   This is not normally something I would have done, to be honest about it, because it wasn't all about me.  I didn't want to drive out to the airport to sit in a church pew right around my dinner time.

"Do you think they'll serve snacks?" I asked SuperK.  "That's my supper time."
"It's a Salvation army rehab center, you dumb ass," she pointed out.
"So . . . no snacks?" I said ruefully.  "Is that what you're telling me?"
I looked up the origins of The Salvation Army before we left and I found out that it's an evangelical Christian origin that uses a quasi-military structure.  I pondered this, and was hard pressed to think of two organizational structures that irritate me more than these two.  I thought of my friend who showed up in The New City penniless and destitute 6 months earlier.  I figured that his family wouldn't make the trip to see him graduate.  I thought about what a tremendous accomplishment this was for him.

The ceremony itself was so over the top that I could barely keep a straight face as I sat in the hard pew, worrying about the snacks, marveling at the great enunciation that the "major" used during his remarks.

"I'd like to ask everyone to raise their hands to the sky - uhh!   Let us pray -- uhh!"

Really, it was OK.  My friend spoke for a minute, and spoke well, from the heart, and was overcome by honest emotion, proud of his achievement and the crowd of supporters who showed up from the morning meeting.  Part of the ceremony involved having someone affix the Salvation Army pin to your lapel, and he asked a rough looking character from the morning meeting to do the honor.  The guy had on a long trench coat and looked out of place amid all of the suits and ties but who gives a shit about that kind of stuff anymore?  The dude showed up.

This after 2 months in the new place.

The Clicker

I'm sure glad that The Program has provided me with a place to go.  It was terrifying being out there on my own, thinking and drinking, thinking and drinking, clicking through The TV channels with my trusty clicker, except that I couldn't afford a clicker-ready TV so I had to get up and walk across the room to see if there was something better on, which didn't often happen, this being TV.  Of course, as the evenings would progress I would simply lose interest in what else might be on and would quit getting up to make the long, perilous walk across the room to The TV.  And this was before the part when I couldn't physically stand upright long enough to make the trip.  At that point it didn't make any difference whether or not I wanted to watch something else.  I think I watched a lot of infomercials with the blond from "Three's Company."  I don't remember. 

I smoked and drank and thought Deep Thoughts.

At a morning meeting last week a friend talked about sitting in his seat on an airplane right before he knew he couldn't make the trip.  He got up and got off right before the cabin doors closed, eating the non-refundable fare and leaving his luggage to make the trip alone.  It was pretty funny, in that Program way that we all know so well.  While I have never done that particular crazy thing, it certainly didn't sound especially unusual.  I could easily see myself doing something similar if the circumstances were right.

I thought about how easily that story comes out in The Rooms.  I also thought about how odd it would sound out in The Real World.

I wonder if his luggage enjoyed the flight.

Being Productive

And if I often doubt whether or not I'm Doing It Right, I'm always wary that I'm not Being Productive.  I have a big control panel that makes me worry about not spending my time wisely.  

I think part of this can be traced to the German peasant in me.  My make-up is to get things done.  As an abstraction that in itself is OK; I make it a defect from time to time by asking too much of myself and the world.  I can't be productive all of the time even if I tried, and it's not in my best interest to push myself like that.  If I could get by without sleeping, for instance, I could be a lot more Productive.  I surmise that the first few days without any sleep I'd get a lot accomplished but I'm guessing that my efficiency would start to drop off rapidly.  I've heard of studies where individuals go without sleep for as long as they can so that scientists can observe what happens.  I believe that after just a few days sleep deprived individuals begin to approach a state that is indistinguishable from clinical psychosis.  They begin to hallucinate up gorillas and shit which actually sounds pretty cool.

And I think part of this can be attributed to all the years I spent sitting on my ass, drunk and stoned.  I think a lot of us are vaguely bedeviled by a need to make up for lost time.  If I want to sit in front of the boob tube, for instance, and watch a basketball game, I feel a little uneasy.  I watched a LOT of basketball games that I can't remember a thing about when I was drinking.  A part of me is sure that I've used up my quota of basketball games.  Again, it's not a bad impulse to want to get outside instead of staying glued to the set, but it's not a tragedy to watch some sports.