I'm Glad I Go To Meetings

The concept of The Middle Ground has been on my mind lately.  Specifically, the battle between changing what irks me and making the best with where I am.  The topic at yesterday's meeting was dealing with resentments, always a popular topic for someone like me who doesn't like anyone.  It reminded me of my first Fourth Step which included everyone currently living on earth as well as most people who have died in the last 300 to 400 years - I can't speak with any accuracy to anything before the Middle Ages.  Seriously, it was a big list.  I got a little carried away with my list.  It took me 18 months of sporadic drinking and using and ignoring The Program before I tackled the work I needed to do, and then I went hog-wild.  Remember that I have two modes: stopped or full acceleration.

A moderately new guy asked me this week to help him get to work on his 4th Step.  He also asked me to do this a year or two ago.  Obviously, he's procrastinating.  I don't spend much time judging people on their Step work, a statement that is such a total a lie because I spend a great deal of time judging everyone on everything.  It's a hobby - I'd work at a place that paid me to judge other people.  Perhaps I should say that I don't restrict myself to judging how other people work The Steps, overwhelmed as I am with judging everyone on everything.  Temporarily overcoming this imperious urge I suggested that he write down a small list of family members as well a few friends and work colleagues and make a start.  It's not the way I would do the Step but maybe it'll get him off the dime.  It's not exactly a searching and fearless inventory but it's a whole lot better than a whole lot of bupkis.

Middle Ground makes me ponder some of the more ambiguous concepts in our literature.  One phrase we trot out like a show horse is the idea that we need to be free from anger, a dubious luxury of more normal men.  Some of us suggest that this means we shouldn't get angry.  I think if I wanted to go completely insane as quickly as possible, I would pretend that I was never angry.  That's ridiculous.  The point is that when I get angry - and I will get angry - I'm getting a little pissed off right now - I need to deal with it appropriately, avoiding curse words, fisticuffs and the heaving of heavy items out of second story windows.  

Another overreach is all of the folklore built up around acceptance.  I think the idea to take to the bank is that the solution to all of my problems is with me - I can act or I can endure but I can't change People, Places, or Things.  It's not to imply that everything is fine and I should just put up with it.  I walked into my early meetings with a butcher knife stuck in my forehead and tried to convince everyone that I was doing great.  I took the positivity thing too far.  Granted, I needed to work on being positive as I was as bitchy as you could possibly be, but I had a butcher knife in my forehead.  It may have been a meat cleaver but it was in my forehead.  I was trying to keep the blood from running into my eyes and dripping on my clothes while maintaining a brave, cheerful smile.  The pain was excruciating   The old guys who helped me  took me into the bathroom and got the knife out.  They didn't laugh at me but they did say something along the lines of: "Uh, there's a cleaver in your head."  It wasn't OK and it wasn't a matter of acceptance.  It was a matter of getting the knife removed. 

Lloyd Braun:  "Serenity now - insanity later."

Analogous

I've always enjoyed analogies.  They take something amorphous and make it concrete.  The fir analogy is one of my favorites.  I know what fire is.  I'm familiar with fire.  I've used fire or its proxies to cook my food, warm up some water so I can have a hot bath, and heat my home.  These are normal uses of fire.  Normal people use fire like this.  Cavemen used fire like this at the dawn of civilization, for chrissake.  Bored with any conformity, I instead opted to start a huge fire using gasoline, kerosene, and other highly flammable accelerants and attempt to burn down the entire building, pausing only to stick my hands in the flames or to heat some water to a full boil for no known purpose.

I can apply this reasoning to my life in general.  I'm jumpy, edgy, and full of nervous energy.  I'm bored easily, frustrated when I don't get what I want and infuriated when things go awry.  I don't even want good things - I want NEW things.  The obscure point I'm trying to make is that I don't let this stuff dominate me.  It's close but I have the upper hand, barely.

Today I'm still using too much gasoline instead of some small sticks of kindling, and I'm starting the fire in a trash can in the kitchen instead of the fireplace but I'm keeping an eye on it.  I cook the odd marshmallow over the trash can and call it dinner, but I've purchased a fire extinguisher which I use when the curtains ignite.  I'm better but I'm not the complete package.  I'm a work in progress.  

I guess I just like to see things burn.

Sloganeering

Back to the transitional meeting today on a rainy Saturday morn.  God love these people.  The chairwoman suggested that each person that spoke today should give their sobriety date and share a few thoughts about their favorite slogan.  We had 50 or 60 people and we got through almost everyone.  A lot of people came to the podium, read one of the 3 or 4 slogans posted on the wall and sat down, to muted applause.  Most of them didn't want to say anything.  One guy, clearly drunk, came to the front unbidden, lead off with a quote by Nietzsche, moved along to one by Shakespeare, before being gently hustled off the stage.  He sat down and grumbled and groused audibly for a few minutes.  There isn't an inexhaustible supply of slogans so the later speakers were at a disadvantage and this clearly discomfited them.

The best thing about new people is that i can flog them with my old routines because really, I haven't  written any new material.   It's like listening to an old Steve Martin routine - funny enough for the time but no longer hilarious.  Maybe a polite chuckle or knowing nod is called for but not any hysterical laughing.  I always get a chuckle with SOBER - Son of a bitch, everything's real.  And FEAR - face everything and recover or . . . ahem . .  Screw everything and run.

One dude came up and asked me to repeat the SOBER joke.  He wrote it down on a napkin.  I'm curious as to where that napkin is going to end up.  We talked for a while until he began insisting that the language of the heart being spoken in The Program can readily be duplicated at his church.  Well, OK, if you say so.

Hee Haw.

Shaken, Then Stirred

I approach most situations with the technique, experience, and intuition of a 5 year old.  This has caused some difficulties in my adult life and it wasn't a joy ride when I was 5, either.

I start out by being impatient - I want things to be all fixed up immediately.  I want problems solved, conundrums plumbed, and mysteries demystified.  I want to know the future.  I want to control the future.  In my experience controlling outcomes is a rarity.  Outcomes come out sometime down the road, in a time and place of their choosing.  I can force and strain and grunt all I want and still not change the natural ebb and flow of things, the vagaries, the vicissitudes, and any other words that start with a V that I'm overlooking.

I also have a tendency to make do.  I want to look on the bright side of things.  Being positive and optimistic is a wonderful coping technique that I overdo.  I'm the guy sitting there with my hair on fire and my ass beginning to smolder, thinking: "Hey, this isn't so bad."  Sometimes I need to be shaken and stirred.

Somewhere in between.

Boo Hoo Hoo

Understanding:  Having or characterized by comprehension' discernment, sympathy, etc.

The thing that I miss the most about The Old City is seeing people that I've known for most of my sobriety.  It's not possible to replace relationships of 20 years in a 24 month time frame, and god knows I've tried.  It was always cool to walk into a meeting and see someone that I had known for a long time, often people with similar lengths of sobriety who were sweating it in the seat right next to me when we were both trying to get sober.  I liked seeing people I didn't have close personal relationships with and even individuals who I didn't like all that much and who didn't like me.  It was familiar.

I will say that mentioning this loss doesn't get me too far with many of the people I left behind.  A lot of people aren't sympathetic.  At all.  A fair number are a bit smug about it, implying that it's my own damn fault for leaving.  I understand this mostly; after all, I'm the guy who left and I would imagine that people can easily assume that I was choosing to leave a place that had become wearisome, and there's a lot of truth to that.  I surely wasn't thinking: "Man, I love everything about this place.  I think I'll move 2500 miles away."  Obviously, there was a fair amount of dissatisfaction or I would have stayed put.  I'm also going to assume that this dissatisfaction comes out as criticism on my part from time to time, no matter how I try to put a positive spin  on it.  And I would assume as well that people who like the place are annoyed that someone else didn't.  It's almost as if I'm saying: "This place sucks - how can you stand it?"  Mostly, I was ready for a change.  And there are a lot of factors in The New City that fit my personality and style better.  It's not right and wrong, good or bad - it's right and left, which is what I did.

What is disappointing is to mention this to people who I've known a long time and get the "you're the one who made the decision to leave" comment.   I'm not afraid to get called on my own bullshit but I also try to give someone who is upset the benefit of the doubt before calling them on their own bullshit.  If someone is upset I don't lead with the "you're the one to blame response" right out of the chute.   It's heavy handed to whack someone who's upset on the nose.  The better technique is to let them release their grief, help them look at the situation from different points of view, and then whack them on the nose.  It's kind of mean.  It's important to get around to root causes eventually or the problem won't ever be solved but it can be off-putting to lead with the nose whacking.

It happened to me today.  I changed the subject quickly.  I was upset and I didn't want to waste my time being criticized.  I was looking for a little understanding - whether I deserved it or not, whether it was my fault or not - and when I could see it wasn't forthcoming I truncated the conversation, and this with a man who I've known most of my 25 sober years.  It's not a question that our relationship is damaged or that I'm afraid to hear someone call me on my own bullshit, but that I was looking for a sympathetic ear.  Not harsh judgment.

Boo hoo hoo,

Willingness

I once chaired a meeting that started at 7:30 on Saturday morning.  The format was for a speaker to establish a topic by giving a brief talk on a favorite passage from The Book.  I asked an old friend to speak one Saturday and he showed up early with a relatively new guy that he was sponsoring.  He must have been a good sponsor because the guy's still sober, although I'm sure my friend would protest that he simply ran into someone who was sick of drinking and ready to do whatever was necessary.

Afterward, my buddy shared this anecdote:

"I called up Zippy and told him that he needed to pick me up at 6:30 on Saturday morning," he said.

"OK," Zippy replied.

Long pause.

"What's going on?" he asked.

I love that story.  I can so relate to that willingness.  And I can tell you that the willingness I finally acquired was because initially I REFUSED to do anything that I didn't want to do.  I was going to show those know-it-all SOBs who were trying to push me around - who did they think they were trying to tell the Mighty Seaweed what to do?  They said Left and I turned Right.

Strangely enough, I kept drinking and using and continued my downward spiral into misery.  Eventually I had had enough and I did whatever those guys asked me to do.  I didn't argue or insist on an explanation anymore.  I just said yes.  They could have asked me to do just about anything and I would have done it.  I couldn't take the pain anymore.

I met with Ferrari Guy this morning.   I asked him to read the First Step and then write a First Step list, and he did that.  He finished that a few days early, in fact, so I told him to read the First Step every day until we got together to talk.

"I read that Step 10 times," he said.  "I kept finding new stuff to think about."

I don't know how this will shake out but he is sure as hell keeping me sober.

Problems of Prosperity

In the Where the Rubber Meets the Road Department . . . . 

I was confronted today with a problem.  As a general rule, I do not like problems, but I also don't like working on solutions, either; this is a really crappy technique which I don't recommend because obviously I'm going to run into the occasional problem no matter how hard and fast I'm moving in the opposite direction.  Some of these problems are a little quicker than I am.  

The particular problem I encountered today falls so firmly in the Problems of Prosperity category that I can't even bring myself to talk in specifics.  There might be some people who would love to be in a position to have this kind of problem.  I know when I was getting sober I felt like punching anyone who complained about these kinds of problems.  Still, as Spandex reminded me, that doesn't mean I can't get upset about the odd Problem of Prosperity.  I'm a human, after all.  Really.

Normally when I'm pondering a potential problem I assume the worst case scenario; this is usually me alone and penniless, battling tuberculosis and mutant vampires in a post-apocalyptic nightmare world.  So far this hasn't happened.  But that doesn't stop me from imagining the worst while simultaneously avoiding any work on the solution.  This is a hobby of mine - fearing the worst and wallowing in the fear.  The problem, of course, is that the worst is rarely as bad as all of the suffering I go through not working on the solution while preparing for a terrible outcome that doesn't come. 

So today I worked on the solution.  It was immediately apparent in this case that what was going to happen was the worst case scenario.  But you know what?  No vampires.  No TB.  No bleak landscape devoid of all life, pulsing with radiation.  A bump.  A minor obstacle in my very pleasant life.  

I spent some time drawing up a few contingency plans.  I'm upset so I'm not going to do much of anything right now in terms of forward motion.  I don't make very good decisions when I'm upset.  My experience is that if I let all of this stuff stew and percolate in my head then the right answer will come.  I'm going to try to relax and take it easy, to not fight everything.

I could swear I have heard this somewhere.

Infinite Capacity for Pain

Infinite:  Lacking limits or bounds; extending beyond measure or comprehension; endless; immeasurable; inexhaustible.

I believe that I had an enormous capacity for pain when I was drinking.  My capacity could be described as infinite.  Moreover, my capacity for pain is still not something to poo-poo although I am a lot better at minimizing it today.  It's not worth it anymore - I can't tolerate the discomfort anymore.

A drunk is staggering along the edge of a cliff.  He loses his balance and falls off but miraculously grabs a branch on the way down.  He begins to scream for help.

"Help, help!" he screams.

A booming voice answers: "I can help you, my child," says the booming voice.

The drunk yells back: "Thank god," he yells.  "Who's there?"

"This is god," the voice replies.  "I can save your life but first you have to let go of the branch."

The drunk hangs there a minute.  He's thinking.

"Is there anyone else there?" he yells.

That was me.  I wasn't going to give up anything.  "What is it, exactly, that you're hanging onto?" my sponsor asked me early on.  He asked me that after I had been sober for a while and it occasionally comes up today.  Apparently I'm not making very much progress.

I'm sorry to trot this one out again but it so resonates with me.

Sponsor again: "Here's your choice: you can go on blotting out your miserable existence to the best of your ability, suffering for as long as your body holds out, eventually ending up dead or in an institution, or you can accept a spiritual solution for your disease."

Drunk thinks.  We like to think.  We think that thinking is just as good as acting.

"Can I get back to you on that tomorrow?" he says.

That was me.  I couldn't give it up.  I knew it was killing me but I couldn't give it up.

Spooky

Relax:  To make looser, or less firm or tense.
Struggle:  To contend or fight violently with an opponent.

"We relax and take it easy.  We don't struggle."

I did not have a relationship with relaxation when I was drinking.  I was firm and tense.  I was all tensed up.  I was a bundle, a ball of firm tension.  My tension was well-developed, buff and toned, ready to take on all comers.  I equated the release and eventual oblivion of alcohol as relaxation.  Alcohol was my Yes Man.  I was not very smart.

Surprise:  To cause to wonder or to be amazed or astonished because unexpected, unusual, etc.; astound.

"We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while."

The right answers were not answers with which I was familiar.  I was always surprised when I actually made a good decision.  I was one of those people who should have kept my mouth shut when I had an urge to speak.  Conversely, when I felt that no action was required all kinds of alarm bells and warning klaxons and strobe lights should have been activated.  

My sponsor put it this way: "Seaweed, do the exact opposite of whatever your instincts tell you to do.  You're going to come out better in the long run, in the short run, and in all of the intermediate distances, such as the 440 yard relay." 

Inspiration:  A divine influence upon human beings, resulting in writing, or in action.

"Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration."

We will know what to do.  We will make the right decisions as a normal course of action, even when these decisions - especially when these decisions - do not seem to be in our best interests, sometimes bringing discomfort into our lives or denying ourselves things that we desire.  We'll take an action that works out well for everyone in the big picture, and we'll think: "Good god, where did that come from?"

Spooky shit.

Not Good, Dr. Pizza Boy

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

I believe that the topic at the meeting I attended this morning - an 11th Step meditation meeting - was death; or suicide, I'm not sure which.  I figure in 25 years that I've been to 6000 meetings and I'm being conservative with that estimate, and I've never been to a meeting with Death as the topic.  It was an interesting choice by the chairman, a man I've heard talk several times without being able to shake the feeling that he's an idiot. No word on what he thinks of me. Needless to say, I thought the meeting sucked.

If you've never been to a bad meeting you don't go to enough meetings.

I knew a chiropractor in The Old City whose license was revoked because of his drinking.  He needed to pay his bills so he took a number of jobs that didn't require any special training or schooling, one of which was delivering pizzas.  He showed up at a company one day with a large order for a party or celebration of some kind.  The receptionist picked up her phone, switched on the intercom function, and broadcast this message to the entire facility: "Attention, everyone.  The pizza boy is here."

My friend leaned over the counter and said: "That's Doctor Pizza Boy."

True story.

Very, Very Nice

Nice:  Agreeable; pleasant; delightful; kind; thoughtful; considerate.

The New City is a very nice city.  People are very nice here.  They're so nice that it makes me sick sometimes.  I want to throw up they're so nice.  The Old City had more of an edge to it.  You had to watch your step because what you said or did could easily annoy someone and provoke an angry reaction.  I've found it easier to be nice here myself because people are so eager to be nice in return.  It's a nice fest or a nice-off.  That being said I miss the dry sense of humor that I could trot out before - it's fun to act like a jerk on purpose from time to time.

Sarcasm:  Hate with a smile.

Anyway, before I totally lose my train of thought - and it's a slim thread I hang onto in the best of times - the point is, if I recall it correctly and I'm not sure that I do, is that it's so productive just to be nice to people.  There - I said it.  I have very little idea why this is such a surprising concept to me.  I like it when people are nice to me.  I've always liked it when people are nice to me, and I rarely enjoy running into the occasional ass, although it doesn't bother me as much as it used to, and I can often learn a little something from the encounter.

I have a friend in town who's single.  He's a very nice man and is working very hard on his recovery.  There's a woman at his job who he thinks is flirting with him a little bit.  It seems obvious to me that she is doing just that but I tried to keep my mouth shut as he talked to me about this, agonizing over what to do and how to interpret things and all the possible bear traps he could step into or the land minds he could detonate.  I'm sympathetic - it's hard being a teenager in a man's body.

It made me think about how I deal with people today that I don't know, especially women.  When I started to frequent my current coffee shop I made a big effort to ask the names of the staff members that I saw regularly.  Then, when I show up, I greet them by name.  I know the guys' names and the gals' names, although it's a little harder for me to talk to the women, partly because they're young and I don't want to come off any creepier than I do normally and partly because women can make me nervous.  It's amazing what happens when you walk into a place and greet someone by name.  The relationships warm up - all of them do - and some of them become a lot more personal.  

I'm so busy trying to get out in the future and find out what the end game is that I don't do the simple things that work so well.

Workin' For a A Livin'

Work:  To move, proceed, etc. slowly and with or as with difficulty.

I'm going to meet this weekend with the guy from the transitional meeting who doesn't have a Ferrari.  He says he wants to work The Steps.  He says he does.  I think most people believe that working The Steps doesn't actually involve any work.  I think this because when I suggest work that they can do they almost never do it.  It's a rarity, an oddity.  Usually I don't even get a phone call after I pass out a work assignment.  When I was getting sober and people gave me work to do that I said I was going to do but knew I wasn't going to think about doing, I didn't call back, either.

I thought that working The Steps was going to be some kind of visitation or haunting or possession.  Nobody told me it was going to involve reading and writing and going to meetings which frankly sounded like a lot of work that I didn't want to do.

So, Mr. No Ferrari calls.  He did the work.  I think I like this guy.

An Ancient Riff

And since I'm riffing on expectations . . . 

There is no better way to see how twisted my expectations are than to examine my relationships with other people.  The book uses phrases like "total inability to form a healthy relationship with another person" and suggests that my relationships with other people cause me practically all of the problems that there are.  I'm paraphrasing here but you get the point: we SUCK at relationships.  We take and we don't give.  We show no understanding for the defects of others while expecting that they bend over backwards to forgive us when we make a mistake.  We think they should read our minds but we can't be bothered to consider their circumstances at all.

Man, I'm difficult.

I received a message yesterday from a woman I knew from The Old City.  She's a difficult person, too, and this isn't just my opinion.  But that's OK, I like difficult people, generally - they're more interesting than bland, white bread people.  God knows I'm difficult and god also knows I married someone who can be difficult.  (See how I popped in the qualifier "can be?"  It allowed me to soften the insult - that's a hallmark of a difficult person: seeming to be nice while simultaneously being bitchy.)  

Anyway, it was a shitty message.  I'm not sure if she was trying to be funny and it came out wrong or if she was really irritated with me and spoke without applying any kind of filter, which is not uncommon for her.  Normally, I would just laugh this off.  As I've made abundantly clear I don't get too caught up in what other people think of me.  But I read this note late last night and it really frosted my ass.  I did the electronic version of taking a pair of scissors and cutting out her face from all of my pictures.  This may seem childish, probably because it isn't mature.  I considered several responses on the very difficult side but decided to cease communication.  It's not like we ever communicate so this isn't that big a deal.  I think part of the reason is that we never communicate which made a shitty message really pop.  No "Hey, how's it going?" as a prelim.

Pie Man

Pie:  (slang) something extremely good or easy.

Yeah, well, what's on my mind right now is how much I can take out of the world today.  That's my goal - to get as much of the pie as I can get.  Given the slightest opening I'll eat the entire pie.  I'd live in a pie shop if I could, eating nothing but pie, and I don't even really like pie all that much.  I prefer cake but the only slogan that comes to mind is "that really takes the cake," and I'm not clear as to what that really means.  The point is this: if someone doesn't give me some pie right now I may have to buy a weapon and go rob a pie store.

I have to laugh at how much I expect to get out of life.  It's so implausible it's ridiculous.  When I'm unhappy it's almost always because my expectations are completely out of whack.  I think I deserve the entire pie.  I look down at my one or two or three measly pieces of pie and it feels like I've been screwed.

Who expects to be happy all of the time?  Who expects their spouse to fall in line, their children to toe the line, and their work life to be one big yuck? I do! I do!

It Is What It Is

Contented:  Not desiring something more or different, satisfied.

The whole thing with contentment and discontentment and where I am on the continuum, I don't really fight it that much anymore.  That I'm prone to being discontent is kind of status quo for me, to be honest about it.  It's like the fact that I have legs - it's how it is.  I don't try to not have legs even if they're hurting me or are tired.  They're there and I gotta deal with it.

I believe that some of this can be attributed to my alcoholism - we don't seem to be a very satisfied group of people as a general rule.  My upbringing is surely involved.  And some I assume is hard-wired into my DNA.  Some of us humans have a huge GO button installed.  I have a prominent ON button located on my control panel - I can never find the OFF button; I look and look until I get so frustrated I smash the $#!! thing against the wall.

These tendencies make me conscientious and ethical.  They aren't bad as in scaaaaaaaary bad.  They are what they are.  I think I would have been one of those idiots on the Oregon Trail with my Conestoga wagon and butter churn, lighting out for the territory ahead and whatever adventures lay there.  Probably the Santa Fe trail, come to think of it.  I'd rather die of thirst than freeze to death.

I try not to fight this stuff today.  I try not to fight it all the time, anyway.

23

Today I celebrate 23 years of marriage, an accomplishment which dwarfs, which obliterates 25 years of sobriety in its impressiveness.

One thing I pray for every morning in my Quiet Time is to be the best husband, brother, and son that I can be and you can trust me here: there's a lot of room to grow in all three categories. These are the relationships  that are the most important to me and the ones that can be the most troublesome at times.  Worth every penny despite stepping on the occasional land mind.

I also pray that I may be of maximum service in my dealings with other people.  I have myself convinced that I want this to actually happen.  I believe that I have some room to grow here, too.  When I say "maximum service" I envision certain favorable situations, lacking in any pain or discomfort.  For instance, I hope that I meet someone in The Program who owns a Ferrari or any other Italian supercar and urges me to use it while he's on a lengthy foreign assignment.  "Drive me to the airport and we'll call it even," he'd say.  "Put as many miles on it as you want- it seems silly to have it just sitting there while I'm gone."

Instead, what plops in my lap is this: I give my phone number to a rough looking character from my downtown transients' meeting, secure in the knowledge that he almost certainly won't call - very few drunks ever do - only to have my phone ring.  This big dude wants to go to the meeting.  And work The Steps.  So I pick him up at the group home where he currently lives - not in a Ferrari - and drive him to my home group.  He has over two years of sobriety already, a fact I found encouraging until I discovered that he got most of it while he was serving time in prison.  For assault.  

He's actually a nice man but I don't think he has a Ferrari.

Easy Seaweed

Easy:  Free from trouble, anxiety, pain, etc.

Not.  Happening.

Easy on the eyes.  Easy in my mind.  A life of ease.  Easy come, easy go.  On easy street.  Where the hell is Easy Street anyway?  I think that I'm usually hunkered down at 1234 Difficult Way.

Easier:    Not easy, not hard.  Somewhere in between.  Implying that something hard is not quite as hard as it used to be but some hardness is still implied.  Not a Webster's definition, either - I totally made that one up.    

Easy-going:  Dealing with things in an unworried, unhurried manner; not strenuous or agitated.

Yeah, or dealing with things all at once, in a rush, without pondering or thinking because they have to be done RIGHT NOW or else TERRIBLE THINGS WILL HAPPEN!  Strenuously agitated.

Easy-mark:  A person easily duped or taken advantage of.

I can make anything easy a lot harder.  It's a specialty of mine: complicating things, taking a simple task and making it so very difficult. 

An elephant is a mouse built to an alcoholic's specifications.

Reasonably:  Not extreme; sensible; sane.

The Serenity Prayer suggests that a reasonable goal is to be: "reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy . . .  in the next."

Then there's this early version of the Serenity Prayer:  "Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other."

But wait!!  Mother Goose in 1695 suggests that:

For every ailment under the sun
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.

I like the Mother Goose thing.  I'd take some advice from Mother Goose.  I'd take advice from any goose or gander who spoke to me in English or wrote something down on a scrap of paper that I could read.  An old conservative minister?  Not so much.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Rabbit Hole:  : A bizarre or difficult state or situation (Alice enters the Wonderland by going down a rabbit hole).

I sit quietly with my own thoughts.  If you think this sounds easy, try it some time.  It's not that easy.  My thoughts aren't always pleasant.  I don't know why this is so and I don't try to figure it out anymore.  I don't know if it's my make-up or my upbringing or it's my alcoholism.  I don't spend any time trying to figure out why I have legs and how I learned to work them properly, either; I take all of that on faith. It's not something I'm ever going to be able to completely understand.  It isn't always logical.  

My brain goes this way and that way and down every fucking little rabbit hole I can find.  It just does this.  It makes no sense most of the time but nothing makes a lot of sense to me.  I look at the thoughts as they come and go.  They can't hurt me.  They're just thoughts.  They're not real.  If I get attacked and mauled by a bunch of thoughts I'll be sure to post it IMMEDIATELY on this site.  We'll really have something going on.

I wonder why Alice went into a rabbit hole anyway?  I guess I should re-read the book.  I personally wouldn't go down a rabbit hole.  There might be some especially large rabbits down there.  

On Top of the World

I took a 5 hour hike yesterday with a couple of friends from The Program.  For the first couple of hours we climbed steadily through forest and then alpine meadows until we reached a spot to eat lunch that was just below the tree line.  It was a perfect fall day on the mountain - cool enough for a jacket in the shade but at the top the sun was so intense I got a little sunburn.  We ate facing the glacier at the very top of the range.  It was funny to think that the area would be under 5 feet of snow in a couple of months.

It was extraordinarily quiet.  I have grown so accustomed to all the racket in my city life that it's almost alarming to have a lack of noise.  There weren't any tall trees so even the whooshing, whistling noise of wind stirring the branches was absent.  My ears felt a little ringey because of the elevation and the strenuous climb.  The intense exercise had helped me burn off most of the nervous energy that often plagues my day.  I was calm.  I was in the moment.  I was on my toes and hyper-vigilant for the sound of foraging bears.  It was really quite nice.  

This is a beautiful world we live in.  If only I paid attention every now and then.

Haste Makes Waste

Hurry:  To cause to move or act more rapidly or too rapidly; drive, move, send, force, or carry with haste.

When I woke up this morning They were gaining on me.  I don't know who They are and I don't know what They want.  They might not even be after me - They might be after someone else and I've simply gotten in the way.  I'm not sure They aren't any good.  They might be perfectly fine.  Still, I can't shake the sneaking suspicion that They're evil-intentioned, malignant beasts.

I like the suggestion that I should sit quietly with whatever pain or anxiety that may be striking me, real or otherwise.  I'm in such a big hurry to get the pain over with that I don't learn the good lessons that I need to learn.  It's a relief to sit and look the pain right in the eye and not work so hard at getting through it or around it or muscling it down to the ground.  It's just some pain.  Everyone gets it.  Most of it isn't as bad as we think it is.  Many times it leads to something better.  It's not such a big deal.  I'm the one making it a big deal.

I was able to gear down a little today.  I took some time on a few occasions and hung out with Them.  This bunch was a ridiculous little group of hilarious bozos.  They went away.  I didn't have to LEAP INTO ACTION!  Answers come to me when I don't struggle so violently.

"We relax and take it easy.  We don't struggle.  We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while."  P 86

Here Come Uncle Joe

I was back at the downtown meeting today.  I like this meeting a lot.  New people tend to share from their hearts and that's always more inspiring than listening to people like me share from their heads.  Sometimes people with significant sobriety shift into lecture mode - the message comes across as dry and somewhat hectoring in tone; as in "Here's how you should do it" or "I remember when."  I hate I remember when; that's usually when somebody tells a humorous story in great detail that they allege happened in a blackout.  I don't think they have a good grasp on what a blackout is. 

The flip side of the rigged coin that I use is that I need to be around people sometimes who have gotten sober and stayed sober, too, and to meet some people whose life experiences are similar to mine. If you have kids, for example, it's going to be helpful to swap war stories with other people who have kids.  It just makes sense.  So I doubt that I'm going to meet my new best friend at this meeting but in the meantime I'm sure hearing a lot of great stuff.

I got called on to speak today at this meeting for the very first time.  It's a pretty big meeting and I sit in the back row, against the wall.  Frankly, I get to talk about myself enough and there are clearly people here who need to get things off their chests.  That being said I NEVER pass up an opportunity to talk about myself to a captive audience.  This meeting uses a podium with a mike, as if I need amplification with my Foghorn Leghorn voice.  I gave my sobriety date before I spoke today which is not something that I can ever recall doing.  I have enough of a problem with my ego as it is but I thought it was important to let people know that it's very possible to stay sober for a long time.  "Don't drink and don't die," my sponsor responds when asked how he did it.

And I ran some of my shtick past the group, too.  I have these little routines that I trot out from time to time.  I apologize when I trot them out at regular meetings.  I don't have many stories and I forget who I have told them to.  I repeat myself, I'm redundant, I say the same things over and over.  Today I wanted to see if anyone - anyone at all - would laugh.  People with no job or money, homeless or nearly so, newly sober, at 7 AM , in a church basement, can use a chuckle.

I shared my anecdote about sitting in my parent's living room in my mid-20s at 10 in the morning, sucking down bong hits from this 3 foot long purple monstrosity that I had - where did I hide that thing, anyway? - watching Petticoat Junction or Mork and Mindy, agonizing on how great a loss it would be to give all of this glamour up if I decided to quit drinking.  Or saying early on, totally serious, to the earnest man who was trying to impress on me the importance of finding a higher power and working The Steps: "Is there someone else here I can talk to?"  I was looking for some quick answers to my immediate problems revolving around a lack of money, power, and sex, not some vague promise of future peace of mind.

Here comes Uncle Joe,
He's movin' kind of slow.
At the Junction.
Petticoat Junction.

Pray For Patience

Patient:  Bearing enduring pain, trouble, etc. without complaining, losing self-control, making a disturbance, etc.

I like the fact that The Program teaches me important stuff by asking me to do some work.  Sometimes I learn by enduring something unpleasant.  Sometimes I have to wait for something I want and sometimes that thing never comes.  I see the growth in this kind of behavior later on - it doesn't occur to me to be grateful when I'm not getting something I want but don't need.  I have had to learn to be patient; patience is a quality against which I rebel with every fiber of my being.  The phrase "Pray for patience and god puts me in long lines" comes to mind as does "Pray for tolerance and god puts intolerable  people into my life."  This is why I'm not big on praying for things.  I get asked to do things I have no interest in doing.

"Do you want to be more tolerant?" my sponsor asked me.

"OK," I said, warily.  There's always a price to pay with that SOB.

"You know how when you're driving into a construction zone and a sign warns that the left lane is going to be blocked and that you should merge to the right so you queue up on the right then watch some of the Special People fly by on the left and then force themselves into the queue of waiting cars at the last minute?" he said.

"I hate those people so much," I replied.  "Usually I tailgate the guy in front of me to do everything I can to force the bastards off the road."

"Just let 'em in," he said.  "They're going to get in anyway."

"No #$!! way," I commented.

"So you're going to risk having an accident with your car to try to deny this Special Person a spot in the queue when he's going to get in anyway?  And where is it that you have to be in such a hurry?" he pointed out.

SOB is too mild a word for this guy.  I cleaned up his nickname for any children who might be in the room.  He would have been right at home in a Medieval torture dungeon.  He would have worked the rack or carried that big iron ball with all the spikes sticking out of it. 

He continued the onslaught.  "And you know that guy at the meeting that you can't stand?"

"Which one?" I thought but wisely didn't say, figuring this would only encourage him to keep talking.  He knows I don't like anyone so he probably didn't have any specific guy in mind.  He was setting up the pins to make a point that I didn't want to hear.

"I want you to sit next to him every time you see him for the next 3 months," he said.  "Ask him how he's doing."

Why do I call this man?

Sharp as a Tack

Maximum:  The greatest quantity, number, or degree possible or permissible.

One of the standard affirmations in my morning Quiet Time is to express the hope that I may be of maximum service to everyone that I come into contact with.  I believe I've mentioned this before.  I suspect that I've mentioned it many thousands of times which is what I do when I want to convince people that I'm doing something pretty admirable that I'm not really doing.  That way I get the glory but don't have to do the actual work.  It's the best of both worlds.  It's another Catch 22 but a really nice one - I highly recommend it.  For instance, in my Quiet Time this morning I alternated between nodding off and imagining which super-car I would buy if I won the lottery for which I never buy a ticket.  Porsche or Ferrari?  How about both?  If I'm going to win the lottery I might as well go whole hog.  The point is I had a "Quiet Time" and got to fantasize freely.   

Yesterday at the meeting I introduced myself to a guy who I had never seen before in my life.  Apparently he knew who I was, recalling in great detail a number of past interactions detailed enough so that his recollections seemed pretty plausible and not open for discussion.  It was somewhat embarrassing on my part but it happens to me often enough that I simply plow ahead with the conversation.  Anyway, he started to tell me a long, convoluted story that completely confused me.  I tried to engage him with listening noises and a quick comment or two but I really didn't have any idea what he was talking about.  There may have been some mental illness involved; it may have been present in both the speaker and the listener; or he may have been lost on one of the winding flights of fancy that trap all of us from time to time

The point is that there were a lot of my friends at this particular meeting that I would have loved to catch up with.  I don't get to see these folks all that often so I like to talk to them.  Instead, I listened to this guy spin out a barely comprehensible story.  He didn't come up for air once.  I could have projected a hologram onto the wall and he wouldn't have noticed.  There wasn't a momentary pause that would have given me a chance to bail out.

"Wow," he said.  "It's good to see you.  Thanks for letting me get that out."  Whatever it was that he got out.

This is the conundrum of the prayer.  I was of service, apparently.  I didn't enjoy it at all.  It wasn't what I wanted to do.  I want to perform service of my choosing at a time and in a place that is convenient to me.

Maybe I should change my affirmation to "help me be of service at a time and place of my choosing."  That would be a really admirable prayer.