4 For 4

I have a self-image that suits me fine.  That's one thing; another is that I'm surprised that the world doesn't often share this delusional self-construct that I've created for myself.  These delusions are not as severe as they used to be but I still mistake them for accuracy.  I like to gloss over the rough spots so to speak.

For instance, Superk and I had a whole lot of trouble qualifying for health insurance when we moved to The New City.  I saw myself as a very healthy guy; the insurance companies saw me as an old man who was going to get very sick and cost then a lot of money.  It made me a little nervous.  Do they know something that I don't know?  Is there a tumor the size of a softball clearly visible on the back of my head?  It's enough to make me take an extra vitamin today.

Then we tried to qualify for a mortgage.  Banks don't like self-employed people and I've found out they positively loathe self-employed people without jobs.  God help me if they find out I'm an unemployed self-employed guy who is also delusional.  Not only did I not get a mortgage most of the banks and savings & loans said something along the lines of "don't even bother to stop by."  They weren't quite that blunt but it was close.  I wasn't a bad credit risk - I was a toxic credit-default swap.  That I was fully committed to paying back the loan didn't impress them one bit.  They saw a guy - or they would  have seen a guy if they had agreed to see me - who was going to take their money and then welch on the bet.

Setting my sights lower I applied for a credit card from one of the major banks who send me approximately 7000 credit card offers a year.  I've seen vans sporting the corporate logo of this institution driving down the streets in bad neighborhoods throwing fistfuls of credit cards at teenagers, homeless people, and a variety of animals, both wild and domesticated, so I was confident bordering on cocky that a credit card was in my future.   They rejected me for a whole variety of vague reasons, one being "Too many credit inquiries" which is what the banks do when you apply for something.  It's a real Catch 22 - which is a hell of a Catch.  To get a credit card we have to check your credit but we can't give you a card if you've had your credit checked recently.  That's some spooky shit.

3 for 3.  And not a single face to face meeting.  So I fall back on The Program.  We don't reject anybody for anything.  You're a member if you say you are.  I decide that I will volunteer to donate some of my free time that would normally be spent outside of a coffee shop, sitting slack-jawed, and help carry a meeting - at no charge, mind you - into a jail filled with men who are almost certainly there largely due to drug and alcohol problems.  I fill out an on-line application - I then fill out an almost identical paper application which they mail to me - I wait for references to come back from a couple of friends who they actually sent references to - I had a two hour interview; and I was invited back for a two and a half hour orientation session at a jail that I wasn't going to be volunteering at, a request that I balked at.  I had had about enough vetting at that point.

The email plops into my In Box: "We thank you for your time but we don't feel that you are going to be able to provide the volunteer services that we require."

When the jails reject you it may be time to temporarily suspend the filling out of any and all applications.

Stale Bread and Liver Cancer

I have a friend in The Program who drives a truck for a fancy local bakery, delivering bread and rolls to area grocery stores.  I bumped into him this morning as I was migrating from a meeting to the pool when he pulled in.  We chatted pleasantly for a few minutes - he was pretty sure he had liver cancer, a worst case scenario diagnosis that I can SO identify with - when he said: "Hey, do you want some free bread?  It's day old stuff that we can't sell to the stores."

He works for a good bakery.  And I'm cheap enough that he could have substituted "baby rattlesnakes" or "spent uranium fuel rods" for bread and I still would have grabbed a few bags, sight unseen, and just sorted it out when I got home.  Free is free, even if it's something I don't want.  I might need it in the future when I get liver cancer and SuperK leaves me and I die alone, on the streets, in pain and misery.

I digress.  When we got to his truck he handed out bags of designer bread that probably cost 5 or 6 bucks a pop.

"Are you sure this is OK?" I asked, clutching the bags to my chest in a way that demonstrated he would have to use deadly force to get them back.

"Oh, yeah," he said.  "We drop it off at shelters or the food bank."
"Don't worry about it," he added, seeing my stricken look.  "There's more here than they can use."

I thought about giving one bag back but decided against it, figuring the world would judge me by my intentions and not by actions.  Actually, I pondered grabbing a 4th bag but realized that would start me down a slippery slope that might lead to a whole trunk full of stale bread, then armed robbery of the whole #$!! truck.  Luckily, I had forgotten to bring my ski mask.

After my swim I pulled into the coffee shop parking lot.  My street roots guy was out front.  I looked at my three bags of free bread and set aside what I thought was the most tastiest of the loaves, then took the remaining two bags and headed over to where he was standing.

"Sure," he said, when I offered one of them to him.  "Do you have anything with olives in it?"

What is with the people at this coffee shop?  Triple mochas and roast beef sandwiches and olive-studded bread?  They make bread with olives in it?

"I'll take the big one," he said, smiling brightly, grabbing the larger of the two loaves, probably cursing the lack of olives.

You know, it actually irritated me for a minute, the formerly homeless guy taking the larger of the two bags of stale bread that had been given to me for free.

I'm working on it but I have a long journey ahead of me.

Uniquely Qualified

Unique:  Different from all others; having no like or equal.

"Carry this message to other alcoholics!  You can help when no one else can.  You can secure their confidence when others fail."

"No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how we can benefit others."

We are uniquely qualified to help.  A drunk will refuse help from almost everyone - medical professionals, spiritual leaders, family members - but will listen to another drunk who has found a way out.  I will pay closer attention to a formerly homeless heroin addict than I will to almost any doctor; certainly that's a wise move as anyone can see.  And spiritual advice from someone with years of religious training and education?  Get the hell out of town - I'm heading back to the guy who drank a fifth of whiskey every day.  That's a guy who has found a good path to god.

A drunk leaves the bar and begins to stagger home.  He walks right through the construction tape and falls in a deep hole.  He starts to call for help.

A doctor walks by.  He writes a prescription, crumples it up, and bounces it off the drunk's forehead.

"Go to the pharmacy and fill that," he shouts down before walking off.

After a while a religious scholar walks by and listens to the drunk asking for help.  He writes down a prayer, attaches it to a rock, and drops it on top of the drunk's head, drawing blood but otherwise not solving the current problem.

"Say that prayer 50 times," he counsels, following the doctor into the night.

In a few minutes a sobered up alcoholic walks up.  Without pausing he jumps into the hole.  The drunk drunk is apoplectic.

"What are you doing!" he screams.  "Why didn't you go for help?  Why didn't you get a ladder?  Why didn't you splutter splutter splutter . . . "

"I've been down here before.  Many times," the alcoholic says, "and I know the way out."

Positive Self-Assurance

There was this guy who was around for a while when I was getting sober.  I didn't like him much, which is not surprising for a guy who hates everyone.  He had a house and a car and a girlfriend so that may have had something to do with it.  I had a car but he had a nice car, probably one that started even when it was wet or cold or very hot or hadn't been run in the last 20 minutes or so.  He was a salesman as I recall; I didn't much like salesmen then which is why I became one.  I figured I could change the whole profession.  I'm like that - I think big so that I have plenty of opportunities to beat the shit out of myself when I fall short.

Anyway, this guy - like many of us - thought he could beat his alcoholism with pure force of will.  We do that.  We think about things until our heads blow up or fall off, figuring there's a solution for everything in there.  And we grab the bull by the horns and come up with solid, forceful game plans that have absolutely no chance of succeeding, as any sleeping three year old could tell you.  Now that we have it all figured out, we can Take Some Action.  Action can be a very good thing; however, sober action does not equal drunken action which often includes swinging at cops, telling off bosses and late, late night phone calls made in a total blackout. 

This guy started off on a self-improvement jag.  He began on a Positive Thinking binge; no matter what the problem was he'd attack it with the right mental attitude and emerge victorious.  He quickly wearied of all the positivity and veered into Assertive Therapy.  He'd take people, places, and things and Bend Them To His Will through sheer mental gymnastics.

"I was walking around absolutely murdering people with positive self-assurance," he said.

On the golf course one day, after shanking shot after shot into the rough, cheerfully asserting that everything was great, his bewildered partner finally said: "What the hell are you talking about.  You just hit a shot out of bounds.  You're not even on the course.  You're terrible."

I don't remember exactly the point of the story.  Something to do with a "fearless and searching moral inventory," I think.  Looking with honesty at who I am and what I've done instead of seeing life through the warped perspective of the asbottom of a whiskey glass.

Shop It Somewhere Else, Sister

Complain:  To find fault; declare annoyance.

I have been complaining about something for a good little while. This is not to be confused with the general complaining I do about everything almost all of the time; this is a very specific complaint about one thing over which I have absolutely no control.  I don't even want to misrepresent the lack of control I have with say, virtually no control because that would imply some control which, in this case, I do not have.
The brunt of all of this complaining falls on SuperK.  Even though she tired of it long ago she has demonstrated remarkable tolerance as the onslaught has worsened.  Finally, she mentioned that the topic had become noisome and that I should discuss it elsewhere with someone else.  She did not specify who I should discuss it with; neither did she restrict the list of possible people in any way except to mention that her name was not on the list.   My belief is that most people who get married do so because it's very convenient to have someone handy to complain to about things.  That and having someone to blame for the thing you're complaining about.  That's really important, too.  Why take responsibility for anything when there's someone right in the same house that you can saddle with the blame?

To my credit, I have tried to quit the complaining.  On the debit side of the ledger, it has been a slow process.  The rants have become more sporadic and less venomous but have not ceased completely.  They might not even have lessened - what I think has happened and what has happened are often two very different things.  So I've had to be more creative because I want to continue complaining but appear as if I'm not doing so.  I'm not bad at this, except with my wife who has had 23 years to learn every one of my wearisome bitching techniques.  I have no new material to trot out with her.   I am not writing new sketches or introducing new bits.  I am doing my original act to someone who was at the first show and didn't think I was all that funny the first time.

Yesterday I tried to cloak my complaining in a magical vanishing cape.  I don't even own a normal cape let alone one that make me vanish.  I go strolling outside in my magic cape, totally naked, thinking no one can see me.  I complained again about the same thing over which I have no control in a manner so clever that I thought it was opaque.  That way I get to complain but don't get yelled at.  It's the best of both worlds.  But I was called on my crap.  I couldn't believe it.  Later on in the day I was called on my crap again but this time I didn't even know I was trying to BS anyone.  That's how good I am - I bullshit myself.

I shouldn't go out in public. 

Easily, Schmeezily

Easily:  With ease; without much difficulty or effort; without pain or discomfort.

"We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only.  We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped.  We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.  Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work.  You can easily see why."

No!  I cannot easily see why.  I cannot see why after having spent a huge amount of time and effort trying to see why.  It makes no sense to me.  It still makes no sense to me that I should spend any time at all thinking of others.  What benefits are going to accrue to me if I spend time thinking about someone else!?  It takes away valuable time I could be using to think about myself and how I can accrue more money, power, and sex.

This is why we have The Book.  This is why I read The Book and why I read other good books, too - there is a lot of help to be found for raging egomaniacs like me.  Wise men and women have been pondering this stuff for centuries.  These are not new problems.  I am not special.  I do NOT have problems that cannot be solved.  My problems are remarkably simple.  And I can find answers to sticky wickets like this.  I have to read on, not stop and fume when something honks me off which is often.  I have a big horn.

Here we go.  Here's the payoff: "We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.  We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves."

Ah.   OK.  Nice.

Street Roots

There's a guy who is frequently outside my coffee shop who sells a newspaper published by a local charity.  The people who sell this paper get to keep most of the sale price and they generally aren't in the 1% of our society.  In the past I had a tendency to look through people like this, as if they didn't exist, part of my "I'm better than you or I'm worse than you - it has to be one or the other" philosophy of life.  So I make the effort to get to know guys like this on a very casual basis.  He's a nice guy - likable and friendly.

There's also a guy around bumming money from patrons who has definitely taken the substance abuse elevator way, way down.  I give him a buck or whatever change I have, under no illusion that it's going for anything but alcohol.  Sometimes he wanders off, mumbling to himself, then wanders back and asks me for some more money, totally forgetting that I just forked over something.

I asked the newspaper guy about him.

"I buy him a beer sometimes," he said.  "The stores won't sell it to him."
He shrugged: "I don't know if it's the right thing to do or not, but he wants a beer."

I told him I was in The Fellowship.  That got him talking.  He knew about The Fellowship.

"My mom was in for over 50 years.  She knew the founders," he said.  He talked about growing up in a household when our Program was in its infancy, when drunks sobered up in personal homes.  12 Step calls could be wild and woolly.  The answering service rang right into their home when his mother was volunteering; if she wasn't home then he answered the phone.  It made me think about how bitchy I can get when some volunteer working at the answering service doesn't have all the information right at the tip of his fingers.  I'm assuming his kid would probably be less helpful.

It was a good talk.

Bad.

Bad:  Not good; not as it should be; defective in quality; below standard; lacking in worth; inadequate.

I left a meeting early this morning.  Stomped out or stormed out might be more apropos phrasing but I don't want to get dramatic, either.  I leave meetings early from time to time - not often but it isn't a rarity by any means - demonstrating that I have at best a glancing knowledge of the concept of "principles before personalities."  Not  "principals before personalities," of course, which would look more like a line-up of the men and women who ran your school standing at the head of a group of indeterminate personalities.  "Principles before personalities" is only the main spiritual axiom which governs the functioning of our whole Fellowship so you can easily see why I slight it so often, preferring to concentrate on more important matters like how am I going to get my way today.

This is a meditation group so it doesn't attract a lot of newcomers.  It's hard for me to sit still for 15 minutes straight and I've been working away on this whole thing for 25 years; there's no way I could have done it early on.  That leaves a group that has a lot of sobriety - not a bad thing, to be sure - but people like that can get in their heads a little bit too much, forgetting about sharing from the heart.  And it isn't a big group, either, so the same people share each week and as a general rule, most people talk too long, violating the ancient Seaweed Principle of "You aren't nearly as interesting to other people as you are to yourself."  I keep an eye on the clock when I'm talking - unless I'm really in a bad way or I'm all wound up about something or the other I think 2 minutes is plenty of time to say what I have to say.  Anything longer than that and I'm in the "I sure like the sound of my voice" zone.  A distinctly bad zone, one that I should have obliterated by picking up the phone and calling someone a long time ago.

This morning the people who spoke for the amount of time I could tolerate their toneless, aimless droning-on were not riveting.  I listened for a while, contemplating a beautiful autumn morning out the window directly in front of me, imagining the thrill of my large coffee sliding down my throat, and I got up and left.  Not impressive behavior; not especially spiritual, either.

If you've never been to a bad meeting then you haven't gone to enough meetings.

Throw the Dice

Mumble:  To speak or say indistinctly and in a low voice, as with the mouth partly closed; mutter

The meeting I attended this morning is located in the old area of downtown.  I walk in wearing my little hat and a sport coat, as clearly out of place as I am when I walk to the clubhouse in the rich area of town, still wearing the same hat and coat.  My 25 year old jacket looks old there - downtown it looks nice.  I like the dicey meeting.  It's a good meeting.  I'm under no illusion that I'm going to meet my new best friend there but I appreciate the honesty and the wisdom I hear.  It fills a bigger hole in me to hear a guy who is 90 days away from shooting heroin and living in a downtown shelter than some guy with a lot of time and a big house sharing from his head.

The guy sitting next to me mumbled audibly the whole meeting.  I heard the word "problem" repeatedly but couldn't make out the context.  He was probably talking about me.  I assume everyone is talking about me.  Who else would they be talking about?  There was a guy there who had been sober over 30 years, too, which sounded impressive until he mentioned that he just got done serving 35 years in prison.  He was trying to get clearance to go back home in a distant state to "be near family."  I wondered what he thought he was going to find.  Another guy had spent the last 25 years in prison, on and off.  I couldn't decide what sounded worse - a straight gig of 35 years or occasional bursts of open sky for 25.  Neither sounded very good.  One guy drifted off on a long soliloquy about potato salad which was very funny; I enjoyed it very much although I wouldn't pick it as a topic.

I don't think I'm better than anyone, except Willie, and I don't think I worse than anyone, except SuperK.

Beautiful Seaweed

I once watched a movie called "Beautiful Mind" or "A Beautiful Mind."  It may have been called "The Beautiful Mind," but I don't think so.  It was about a brilliant, brilliant mathematician (you can tell he was really brilliant by the fact that I used "brilliant" twice, back to back) who suffered from a debilitating mental illness - schizophrenia, I believe, but my recollection isn't clear on that, either.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure I even watched the movie.  Maybe I read a review about it from someone who watched it or maybe I overheard someone telling someone else about a review that he read.

Anyway, this guy was bedeviled by a group of individuals that he could clearly see but that did not, in fact, exist.  They talked to him, usually in a frightening, aggressive manner, full of paranoia and delusion.  They didn't have his best interests in mind.  No one else could see them which is how I figured out that he was mentally ill.  It's not a good sign generally when you hold conversations with people who no one else can see.  It must be very distracting at dinner parties what with all the people talking, both real and imaginary.  

These people caused a lot of problems for the mathematician so he sought competent psychiatric help to make them go somewhere else.  I remember a guy in a suit and a little girl being most problematic. For the mathematician, that is, not the psychiatrist, who was doing just fine.  The analysis helped him out a lot; he got better.  The last scene of the movie was in the psychiatrist's office; we listen in as the doctor congratulates the math guy on his recovery, pointing out the fact that he had successfully overcome the existence of the imaginary people.

As the math guy gets up to leave the camera pans out, and we see the little girl and the guy in a suit sitting quietly in the corner.  The math guy smiles at them and they smile back.  There seems to be an agreement implicit in their smiles.

I like the imagery.  It's how I feel sometimes.  I'm still crazy but I'm not that crazy.  I'm not can't-go-out-in-public crazy although it's good that SuperK is often with me, to serve as a buffer between me and the normal people.  I like the idea that the imaginary people were still there but not causing so many problems.  I think that's a good goal for people like me.  The imaginary people are free to stay as long as they behave themselves.  I'm not insisting that they go away, anymore.  

It's like letting the drunk guy stay in the meeting as long as he sits quietly.

Possessed.

Possess:  To have as belonging to one; own.

We took a few more bags of stuff to Goodwill this week and we listed a few more large items for sale.  It amazes me that my tiny apartment continues to disgorge more ejectables.  I think there's some kind of fusion process going on in here.  The junk is creating more junk.  I haven't missed anything yet except for a cheese grater that I'm not entirely sure I ever owned.  I miss the concept of some of the things I've gotten rid of, the memory, the impression of those things.  Some of them were nice and obviously my identity is still tied up with them.

Here's the flip side - I value the things I possess a lot more.  I enjoy them.  There aren't so many of them that I can't keep track of them all.  It's a manageable pile of things.

Very, Very Insistent

Committee:  A group of people chosen . . . to consider some matter or to function in a certain capacity.

We talk in The Fellowship about The Committee.  The Committee is a group of individuals who live in your head.  Needless to say, if this concept makes sense to you then you're in a sorry, sorry state and you might want to consider dialing 911 and screaming into the phone when someone answers.  Most normally functioning adults don't have a group of individuals living in their heads, as far as I can tell.  If they do they're not bringing it up in everyday conversation.  Frankly, it sounds kind of insane which is not a state that most people aspire to attain.  Alcoholics, however, are more comfortable with the state of insanity seeing as we live there most of the time.

Anyway, The Committee is large and irrational and rabid and very, very insistent.  Members shout a lot and get into a lot of fights and demand to get their own way.  Think English soccer riot meets a marauding Genghis Khan and his Mongol Horde in the mosh pit of a Marilyn Manson concert, then go way more violent.  Good - you're about half-way to understanding the general tenor of a normal, routine, totally insane Committee meeting.

The Committee is always yelling.  Do this, don't do that, what the $#!! is the matter with you, you $#!! idiot, and other less gentle things.  It's chaos in there.  This is one of the reasons I try to keep my mouth shut most of the time - I'm afraid that one of the more vociferous Committee members might override the one rational Committee member and say something inappropriate, or worrisome, or threatening, or illegal.  I feel sorry for the rational guy.  I think he's all by himself in there.  I've never seen him talking to anyone else.

Meditation helps a lot.  Meditation is a police action.  It's effective in herding the Mongol Horde into a holding pen of sorts.  But we never get all of them - we have totally given up on trying to get all of them or even most of them into that pen.  We aspire to get some of them.  Trust me on this: it's better to have a somewhat reduced number of screaming irrationals.  It feels quiet, like an early morning in a remote cabin, after enduring the full force of the full crew.

This is progress for me.  My Committee is down to several hundred.  That doesn't sound good but think of the noise level at a poorly attended high school football game vs. noise at the Super Bowl.

The Precious

Precious:  Of great value or price; costly.

If someone thinks that you are a fool, it's better to remain silent than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

I was at the coffee shop a few days ago, sitting out in the sun, enjoying my overpriced specialty coffee drink.  There's a park across the street that serves as a bedroom for a rotating group of down-on-their-luckers.  Often one of them will stop by and try to bum some change from those of us hardy enough to sit outside.  I usually fish out a few coins or a buck.  It doesn't seem like a burden on me.  Frankly, I don't care where the money goes.  None of these guys or gals appear to be on a winning streak.  I don't assume anymore that I'm getting scammed.  I assume they have addiction problems or mental health issues or grew up in violent, dysfunctional homes.  It sure makes it easier to hand over that precious, precious dollar than imagining I'm dealing with a healthy person who is too lazy to work.  I don't see it in their faces, to be honest with you.

Today I watched a guy weave across the street.  Two steps forward, one step sideways, right across the middle of a busy thoroughfare.  This looked to me to be the effects of heroin or oxy - something more powerful than alcohol.  He walked right up to me and looked at my coffee.  

"That smells good," he said.

I waited patiently.

"What do you need?" I asked.

He looked at my coffee for a while longer.

"I could sure use a triple mocha," he decided.

Fair enough, I thought.  "How about a cup of coffee," I replied.

He looked at me for a long minute.  "A cup of coffee would be great," he said.

I came back outside with his coffee.  He thanked me and made what he probably assumed was a little small talk before drifting through the moving traffic to the park.

He showed up again today and worked a couple eating at a table next to me.  He asked them if they could spare some money for some food.

"What do you want to eat?" the man asked.

"A roast beef sandwich," the guy said.

"How about a bagel and cream cheese?" the man replied.

"A bagel and cream cheese would be great."

I spoke with the couple for a minute.  I thanked.  I told them they had made my day, because they had made my day.  Most people say no.  It doesn't seem especially kind to me.

That Damn Book

Basically:  Fundamentally; primarily.

"So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making."

You think?  Whenever I'm unsure what the problem is I follow my irritating sponsor's advice: I go find a mirror.  Up to this point I have been confronted by the same idiot looking back at me; the idiot who thinks that he isn't at fault for anything and that it's a terribly injustice when life delivers any of the bumps and bruises that life is going to deliver.

Riot:  Wild or violent disorder, confusion, or disturbance; tumult; uproar.
Extreme:   Very great or greatest; excessive; immoderate; very severe; drastic.

"They arise (the troubles do) out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot. . . "

Our founders could be so polite and respectful as they wanged us on the head with a wanging tool.  This sentence can be translated more clearly for the dim and slow-witted among us: "Your problems are caused by YOU, and YOU are an excessive, drastic, very severe (not just severe - very severe) example of wild and violent disorder."

That sounds about right.  But that's not the clincher.  

" . . . though he usually doesn't think so."

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I rest my case.

Thank God I Didn't Have To Put That Together

Success:  The gaining of wealth, rank, fame, etc.

When SuperK and I moved into our current apartment we brought a lot of our furniture with us.  Before our first move - from a big, barn-like house to our transitional rental - we got rid of a lot of stuff.  It was the easy stuff - crap that was in the basement, worn-out furniture, broken junk, and the like.  The second move down in size has been harder; we jettisoned some more stuff and some stuff that had a lot of sentimental value.  As an irrelevant aside I'll say that what I think something is worth and what a possible buyer thinks that thing is worth has been off consistently by a factor of 10 or so.

Still, when our wonderful movers had gotten everything situated right where we wanted it in our new place it reminded me somewhat of the appearance of the inside of a pack of cigarettes before the first smoke is removed.  We actually lost SuperK inside for a few weeks.  We knew she was in there somewhere.  We still don't know where the cat is.  We can hear her scrabbling around from time to time and she cleans out her food dish but we haven't seen her since late last year.

So we bought a cheap bedroom set last week, one that is specifically designed for a small space, one that seemed to require an advanced degree in mechanical engineering to assemble.  Not that I would know as I got the hell out of there when all that was going on.  SuperK did a nice job.   But it's hard giving up the stuff.  I don't feel as important with my cheap bedroom set as I did before.  I don't feel like I'm a big success.

Judge me by my furniture - not by my actions.

Working Overtime

I try to pay attention to how active my mind is.  That bad boy is working on something all of the time.  That bad boy is working overtime.  My current effort to improve my meditation skills has made me more aware of this hyperactivity.  I try to sit quietly and empty my mind of all thoughts and when that fails - and god knows it fails - I try to let the roiling thoughts simply wash over me.  Don't control them; don't corral them; don't try to force them to stop; don't judge them as good or bad, as tempting as this is.  They're just electrical impulses in my head.  they're not even real.

This formal exercise in meditation makes me more aware of how active my head is ALL OF THE TIME.  I walked to my coffee shop this morning - after an early morning meeting because sometimes I get my priorities right - and I had to laugh at all of the shit that was occupying me.  Planning out future outcomes that almost certainly won't come true; reliving past events that are long dead and gone, and irretrievable; and a ridiculous amount of idle fantasizing about things that are beyond implausible.

This on a beautiful, beautiful autumn morning on an interesting city street full of stores and traffic and people going about their business.  Half the time I'm so preoccupied with thinking that I don't know where I am.

Reportedly, anecdotally, someone once expressed frustration at the slow pace of their    meditation to the Dali Lama.  

Don't worry about it," the D.L. is said to have replied.  "You should begin to see some improvement if you stick with it for 10 or 15 years."

Personally, I can't see the D.L. using the phrase "stick with it."

The Royal Slippers

Relapse:  The recurrence of a disease after apparent recovery.

Relapse is probably the worst topic ever brought up in a meeting.  The chairman yesterday read from Step Nine - being the Ninth Step it comes right after Step Eight but it's not quite as far as the 10th Step - to establish the topic and then added, jokingly: "Or talk about whatever you want, relapse, whatever . .  . "Of curse everyone talks about relapse which is a compelling problem and much more fun to pore over than our direct amends Step, a very hard Step to complete - maybe the hardest of them all.

It's not like it's an important Step.  Just because The Promises start up in earnest after we are half way through with our amends . . . 

I'm not sure about the whole concept of relapse, anyway.  Relapse is something that happens and is out of your control  You relapse with cancer or leukemia.  It took me about a year to finally sober up after I started coming to meetings.  I used to say that I relapsed many times during that time.  Now I say this: "I continued to drink and blow weed during that first year."  It's simpler and it's the truth.  Frankly, I wasn't finished drinking so I didn't do the work I needed to do to stay sober.

I didn't relapse.  I got drunk. 

The Push

Push:  To thrust or press against (a thing) so as to move it away. 

I have had something on my mind the last few weeks.  It has been a problem only because I've been making it into a problem.  I can do that.  I can take something very ordinary and make it a problem.  It's a hell of a party trick.  In fact - and this is the case here - I can take a good thing and make it into a problem.  Mostly, I try to get my own way.  This is OK within limits - I am a human being after all - but I have only a glancing familiarity with limits.  I push and push and push and push.

I called my New City sponsor to discuss this.  I call him sometimes and sometimes I call my Old City sponsor.  The new guy and I are very similar people and the old guy is my polar opposite.  I find the tension between these two divergent points of view to be helpful.  Interestingly, I get very similar advice most of the time.  

It's not about any specific advice.  It's the reaching out to another live person and breaking the isolation that's important.  I rarely get a new, earth-shattering revelation but I always get relief.

Prepositions

When I first tried to get sober I thought that Step Two read like this: "Came to believe in a power greater than myself."  As you can see, I wasn't a great reader when I came into The Program.  I could read the words just fine - it was the understanding of the words that gave me problems.  That and the reading the entire sentence part.  I read until I got bored which was very quickly or when the thing I was reading seemed to indicate that I had to do some work, at which point I quit extremely quickly.

I heard this Step many times before I picked up on the presence of "that" rather than "in."  "In" was an easier sell for me.  I believed in a god already - more or less, in a vague, tortured, misshapen, punishing way  - even though I didn't act like it very often.  "In" is a much more passive word to my way of thinking; regrettably, it totally ignored the fact that a successful completion of Step One had already asked me to acknowledge the existence of a Higher Power.  I thought that happened in Step Two.  Clearly, I hadn't done Step One very well or I would have done the "in" part already and wouldn't have to be looking for it in Step Two.  I blew through this distinction like I blew through red lights and bags of weed and 12 packs.  "That," on the other hand, indicated the god needed to do something.

I choked on this understanding when it seeped into my consciousness.  This was a hard concept for me to swallow.  So it isn't surprising to hear that I was sober for another couple of years before I picked up on the insanity part.  That part came at the very end and was frankly, a little insulting.  It's not a complimentary state, insanity.  It isn't something that most people aspire to.

I read better today.

Really Selfish

Selfish:  Having such regard for one's own interests and advantage that the happiness and welfare of others become of less concern than is considered right or just.

Alcoholic Selfish:  The desire that everyone else in the world feels the same way.

It's embarrassing to admit how selfish I am.  It's really embarrassing to admit that I want everyone else to have such a high regard for my own happiness and welfare.

Coyotes

I took a hike yesterday.  I was in a huge park system very close to where I live; reportedly the largest park located within a major metropolitan area in the U.S.  I don't know if that's true but you can start at one end and hike for 30 miles before you get to the other end, and most of the time you're by yourself.  The only folks I saw yesterday were the sporadic runners drifting by, nodding briefly in my direction.  Still, the park is in the middle of a good sized city; it's hardly the wilderness.

One kid slowed and popped out his headphones: "I think something has been following me; maybe a coyote," he said.  "I was pretty scared.  Just wanted you to know."  The bastard drifted on, having planted many, many seeds of fear and paranoia in my fecund brain.

The facts are probably this: nothing was following him; if something was following him it was nothing more ferocious than a squirrel or hedgehog; there aren't any coyotes within 10 miles of the trail; and if there were, they would be smart enough to stay away from something that weighs 10 times as much as they do.  What do coyotes eat anyway?  Probably mice.  Certainly not 180 lb men.

To my credit, I continued walking.  The very small smart part of my brain - the part that would have pondered the probable facts and reacted like a sane individual - was completely overwhelmed by the rest of my brain - the parts that love problems and fear and imagined my shredded body, covered in coyote saliva, being discovered by a much more fortunate hiker later that day.

I picked up a big stick and whacked it against a tree.  I continued to hike.  I decided the stick was not enough weaponry so I picked up a rock with a pointed end.  I tested its heft in my hand, judging it to be big enough and sharp enough to do some real damage to an attacking coyote, but not so large that it would prove to be too heavy to swing effectively or to burden my hike, which was onerous enough exercise.  I moved forward, swirling around from time to time to make sure no coyotes were trying to sneak up on me.  If I had brought a loincloth I could have stripped down and completed my caveman impression.

At some point I tossed those two ridiculous things in the weeds.  Is it any wonder that I drank, being so fond of fear?

One of the things that I do when I hike by myself is to concentrate on my breathing: breathe in - let god - breathe out - let go.  This practice helps me shut off my overactive brain and gets me In The Moment.  The Moment is a good thing because I'm usually in fine shape at any particular time.  It's when I go into the future that I get into trouble.  And I'm in the woods - the whole idea is to enjoy the environment.

I'll tell you this: when I was doing the caveman thing, scanning for murderous coyotes, I was in the moment.  Fear does occasionally have a purpose.

Waste of Time

Different:  Not the same; distinct; separate.

Sometimes I feel different than everyone else.  

Most of the time I feel different than everyone else.  

I always feel different than everyone else.

Did you pick up on that nice little progression of insane thinking?  This is why I have to hang around with You People.  You People think you're different than everyone else, too.  And You People are under the impression that People Like Me are thinking about you.  Well, we're not.  We're thinking about ourselves.  Your very existence barely registers in our consciousnesses and when it does it's usually in the form of irritation or anger of some sort.  So the lesson here - an admittedly bad one - is Get Out of My Way.  Unless of course you have something that I want at which point you can Get In My Way.  It's not always going to be easy figuring out which of the two I want, either.  This is why most people Go Somewhere Else.

I believe that I was trying to make a point about what a waste of time it is to think that I'm different from everyone else but decided to waste some time riffing on how little I think about anyone else.  Unfortunately, this is a well fleshed out topic and consequently not worth wasting any of your time on.  I probably should have made that point earlier seeing as you've already read this far, wasting some more of your valuable time.  I'm sure I was thinking about myself.  I'm always thinking about myself.  It's what I do.

Being an alcoholic I like to think that everything I experience is due to my alcoholism.  This type of self-centered crap is typical of my alcoholic thinking.  While I believe that my disease colors many things it doesn't separate me from the human race.  This morning I feel a little anxious so I immediately scream: "Alcoholism!!"  When I was drinking I used this reasoning to separate myself from the world so that I could drink at it.

Anxiety:  When the brain overrides the body's desire to choke the shit out of some asshole who desperately needs it.  (Ed. Note: Mr. Webster, who has kindly supplied most of my definitions, disavows all knowledge of this one).

There's a point in here somewhere.

Step10 . . . errr . . . Step 11.

Perseverance:  Continuing to do something in spite of difficulties, obstacles, etc.; steadfastness in purpose; persistence.

The topic for today's meeting was the 10th Step, one of the maintenance Steps, the one that deals with the ongoing, daily inventory.  The keyword normally associated with Step 10 is perseverance: The Slog, The Trudge, the steady, steely march toward some semblance of normalcy.  

Personally, I don't pay much attention to Step 10.  I figure that it must be a Step helpful to those of you who continue to make mistakes.  i concentrate most of my time on the Steps that emphasize perfection.  This is Step What Planet Do You Live On, Anyway?  I believe it is found around Step 12 Million or so, give a take the odd hundred thousand.  It takes a lot of  time and effort to get so far into recovery but I'm the guy who can definitely pretend that he's considered doing it.

Thank god there are only 12 of them, plus the 13th Step which is how come there's a SuperK in my life.  That was a great step.

Ironically, the guy read out of Step 11.  I don't really care as long as he read out of the damn book.

Future Tripping

A constant source of amazement for me is how much time I spent living in the future.  It's also amazing that I'm amazed at how often I consciously choose to do something I don't particularly want to do and know isn't all that good for me.  I'm a complicated guy; either that or I'm an idiot.

I spend huge, vast amounts of time in the future.  And, pointing out the obvious, I'm not actually in the future; my mind may be projecting into the future but me - Seaweed - I'm not actually there.  I don't believe I've ever been in the future apart from the odd bad acid trip.  I can't control the future, either, despite my constant attempts to do so.  And I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't want to be able to control the future even if this power were given to me.   I base this statement on the disaster I make of things when I do get what I think I want and am sure I need, until I find out that neither of those statements are true.

I wonder why  I'm so fascinated with what will probably never happen.  I'm certain I've spent months of my actual physical life preparing conversations, sprinkled with witty comebacks and sparkling observations, that have never happened.  The fistfights, the disasters, the losses of job and loved ones and life and limb, none of which has ever happened.

One day at a time.

YoHoHo

Principle:  A fundamental truth, law, doctrine or motivating force, upon which others are based.

The topic today centered around a phrase found in one of our Traditions: "Principles before personalities."  Whenever I start to talk about someone who isn't actually present with my sponsor - a really nice way of trying to dress up gossip, a particularly ugly defect - he interrupts me firmly: "Principles before personalities, Seaweed.  Principles before personalities."  

I was sober about 10 years before I finally asked: "What the hell does that mean anyhow?"

Not one to do my work for me my sponsor suggested that I look it up and then get back to him.

It means don't talk about someone behind their back unless you are completely, absolutely certain they would approve.  The principle is anonymity.  This is more important than the personality.  The anonymity protects the member who may not want details of his debauchs, imprisonments, and affairs spread among the general public which may include members of his church, his co-workers, his family.  And the anonymity protects the Fellowship itself from the indiscretions of your average vain, loud-mouthing, relapsing drunk.  

Nobody is in charge in here.