This and That, Stupid Stuff, Mostly

I'm not going to go to my men's meeting tonight.  I can't get past those quotes from the religious book that battered me in my youth.  I would be very upset if the group took this decision with anything more than a big, collective: "Meh."

I'm still dancing around with the generalized anxiety despite the fact that everything in my life is totally fine.  The only source that I can come up with is the death of these two major figures in my life.  I keep wanting to pick up the phone to call Ken to tell him that I'm still struggling with the fact that Ken is dead, and I can't tell you how much I wanted to call my mom when I had that chest cold just to hear her assure me that it was, in fact, some terrible new disease.  I think I'm mad that they died without my permission.  I know that I'm mad that I have to experience discomfort in my life, especially discomfort that I didn't bring upon myself.  I'm much better at advising other people how to deal with discomfort when I'm not personally going through any.

I have jury duty next week.  I'm going to assume you know how excited I am about this.  I'm sure I'm going to get asked to help adjudicate a case involving violent drug cartel members who are going to come to my house and threaten to kill me and my wife and all of my houseplants if I don't vote - you know - the right way.  It has taken us a long time to get our houseplants up and running.  That would be the real tragedy.

I drink too much coffee.  I'm sure this has nothing to do with my generalized anxiety.  Right out of chute, still in my jammies, I slam down a cup and a half of a stimulant that I don't need in the least. 

Why Don't You Try Recovering From Yourself?

Recovered: (simple past tense of recover) - to get better, regain one's health.

There's a sentence in the one of our main books that says ". . . men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."  It's a good sentence, a good, solid, proud sentiment.  Every now and then I hear a member introduce themselves in a meeting by saying "Hi, I'm Seaweed and I'm a recovered alcoholic" in lieu of the standard "I'm an alcoholic" greeting.  Frankly, I think these people are under the impression that they're a little more special than the rest of us but really . . . who gives a shit, right?  Say whatever you want.  I had a buddy in The Old Town explain that saying the "I'm an alcoholic" part was a personal affirmation for his ears,  not the group's ears.  He didn't care if the group thought he was an alcoholic, which still makes me laugh today

There are a handful of people here in Vacation City who have taken this weird, militant stance about saying "recovered."  Whenever one of them chairs a meeting the talk inevitably gets around to how much crap they've taken for saying using the qualifier "recovered."  Frankly, I don't believe them - I've never heard anyone object to that word in my time in The Program.  I think these people want to stand out.  In Chicago I used to say that I was an alcoholic and an addict - true words but I see today that I wanted to be worse than everyone else, a dude who heroically overcame two obstacles.

Seaweed.  Garden Variety Drunk

So-Called Seaweed

So-called:  Called by such a name, with a very strong connotation that the item is not worthy of that name.

And then there's this: ". . . any man, who tries to run his life rigidly by this kind of prayer (that is a prayer asking for explicit guidance), is a particularly disconcerting individual.  To any questioning or criticism of his actions he instantly proffers his reliance upon prayer for guidance in all matters great or small.  He may have forgotten the possibility that his own wishful thinking and the human tendency to rationalize have distorted his so-called guidance."

I like that phrasing: "so-called."  That there phrase is a very classy slap in the face.  There is nothing worse than someone who thinks that they're getting information directly from god.  I think this is why houses of worship annoy me so much and by extension why the men's meeting book is so annoying: the idea that a human can interpret god's will better than I can and then tell me where I'm lacking is more than I can bear, especially since so many people seem to cherry-pick what they think is important.

"With the best of intentions (and that's another kind way of hinting that the intentions do, in fact, suck the big one), he tends to force his own will into all sorts of situations and problems with the comfortable assurance that he is acting under God's specific direction."

Oh, please.  :)

"Craw" Is A Great Word

Stick in my craw:  To cause lasting annoyance, irritation, or hard feelings.

I really should read the shit I write sometimes.  I forget that this writing is for me.

My beloved men's meeting is an off-the-books collection of guys from The Fellowship - not an official meeting published in the local meeting directory.  While much of the structure and format is pure Program - we just got done reading in entirety, from soup to nuts, one of the two main books that were written to guide us along the recovery path - and the meeting is open to anyone we take some liberties with our study material.  (Ed. Note: why is it "soup to nuts," anyway?  What kind of idiot ends their meal with nuts?  It should be from soup to dessert.  I mean, nuts for dessert?  Are you kidding me?)

Anyway, the meeting is kind of a Step-based spirituality meeting so the lack of official status allows us to mix in some non-conference approved literature of a spiritual nature.  Sometimes the books are generic spirituality and sometimes the books get a little religious.  Last night we started on a new book, one written by an official religious guy from the official religion that I had jammed down my throat for the first 18 years of my life and I mean 18 years - I have no doubt I was being hauled along to services within the first 2 weeks of my life.  We had church and church school and vacation church school in the goddam summer for god's sake and special services for many, many special dates during the course of a year, and I was there for every fucking one of them.

As you might expect, I was wary of this new book which was voted in over my objections, making it by default a bad decision.  I try to be open-minded - we've read spiritual books based on official religions with which I don't a long, difficult history, books I've had no objection to at all.  But this one really stuck in my craw.  I could feel my long, difficult history overwhelming my ability to be open-minded.  And I still consider myself pretty mainstream in my religious beliefs - I still consider myself a member of this official religion, just not a regular practicing go-to-services-every-week member and definitely not someone interested in its official dogma being discussed in a Program meeting.  

I was pretty exercised about the whole thing.  There were actual verses from the official book of this official religion in our new selection, and they showed up right out of the chute, causing my mind to snap shut like a well-oiled gopher trap.  I could not concentrate on the reading and I had trouble listening to my brothers, even a couple of them who were as wary as I was about the book although, in my defense,  guys without my extensive, highly prejudiced history.

As it stands today I'm going to excuse myself from the group until they make it through this sorry-ass selection.  I'll probably change my mind by next week but maybe not.  I think that my 58 years of life and 28 years of sobriety has bought me some . . . not seniority but consistency in my beliefs, you know?  I like to try new things - I think it's crucial - but I don't want to bang my head against the wall for no good reason.  I don't like country music - it just doesn't appeal to me and not because I think it's bad music.  If you gave me a bunch of country music and I had to listen to it and listen to nothing else I'd probably find some stuff in there I like and I'd probably gain a new appreciation for the genre but I'd certainly not end up as a country music fan, so please put the country music away.

Is this a case where I need to open up and stretch my mind a little or is this a case where I'd just be banging my head against the wall?

TBD.

Seaweed, Thinker Extraordinaire

Think:  To communicate to oneself in one's mind; to try to find a solution to a problem.

I had to laugh out loud when I saw that definition.  Wow.  

"What's the matter with Seaweed, anyway?"
"Oh, he's just communicating with himself.  In his own mind."

Great.

Anyway, I went to my 12&12 book study on Friday and we read Step 11: Prayer and Meditation.  Then, on Saturday, I went to my Prayer and Meditation Step 11 meeting where we read - you guessed it- Step 11 out of the 12&12.  We read about prayer and meditation from a variety of approved literature sources on Saturday so I was hoping that it would be one of the other selections.  I must have needed to find an answer in those readings.

I was struck by the phrase: "Why can't we take a specific and troubling dilemma straight to God, and in prayer secure from Him sure and definite answers to our requests?"

In my Quiet Time this morning I was trying to pray if by "pray" you mean "think weird and troubling thoughts about myself."  The idea that it would be in my best interest to do what comes up in my head when I'm trying to connect to god with laughable - this is why I have lots of friends to talk to.  They're always saying things like: "You're going to do what now?"

The selection continues: ". . . the thoughts that seem to come from God are not answers at all.  They prove to be well-intentioned unconscious rationalizations" 

Well, I don't know about the well-intentioned part.  I do know that there is often nothing scarier than talking to someone who is convinced that he or she is interpreting the will of god that he or she has received directly.  The conceit that I'm better at talking to god than you are is beyond laughable.

REALLY Petty

Really:  (informal, as an intensifier) Very (modifying an adjective)  

But then things REALLY got out of hand . . .

I turned on my computer one morning to find a message from my sister telling me that they had hired a lawyer to help expedite the process with the county tax assessor, Keeper Of The House Deed. She wanted me to print out and send overnight express about seven thousand pages of legal stuff that was attached to the email.  I noticed, of course, that they had hired a lawyer who had an office in their very tony neighborhood - everyone in their neighborhood, which they modestly downplay every chance they get in a fantastically low-key, passive-aggressive fashion, is "really excellent" at whatever they do, right down to the local donut guy - at a cost of $3000, payable by my father.  Now I know lawyers can be expensive but if this particular barrister takes 8 hours to complete the task at hand he's going to be making like $400 an hour.  I'm not a lawyer but the task at hand seems pretty simple - I can't imagine it's going to take anywhere near 8 hours and I can't imagine that they have to hire Clarence Darrow to complete the task.  Still . . . as no one consulted me beforehand it's none of my business.

After some back and forth I head down to the UPS office and arrange to send two pieces of paper using an Extremely Urgent!! envelope they provide me.  This costs me $45 at which point it becomes very much my business.  This sends me into a mini-rage.  My sister is quite cavalier about spending other people's money which normally I could give a shit about except this is my money which I give a huge shit about.  I mean: I'm really pissed about this.  It's not so much the $45 it's that if these PEOPLE HAD TAKEN MY ADVICE SIX MONTHS AGO WE WOULDN'T BE DOING THIS!

I send the envelope.  I come home.  I tell SuperK that I should say this thing or send this note or make this call so that I can say something else and her hand raises, showing me her palm, code for "Talk to the Hand."  

"Don't be petty," she said.  "It's not worth your energy."

I really wanted to be petty.

The lawyer got the documents and the house sold.  Case closed.

Petty Seaweed

Petty:  Narrow-minded; small-minded; insignificant, trifling, or inconsiderable.

I've mulled over the outcome of the real estate decisions that my father has made, heavily abetted by my sister.  I've mulled them over so much because they ran directly counter to my real estate suggestions and were consequently very, very wrong.  Any idiot knows that my suggestions are invariably the right ones.  

Please keep in mind that I'm not qualified to advise anyone on anything, especially when I'm sitting here in my trailer house many hundreds of miles away.  I'm lucky if I can keep tabs on my wallet and my wife let alone shit going down quickly in The Old City.

And here's the thing: it has been a hard slog through a cold rain trying to get my dad's house sold.  He decided to use a real estate agent - a colleague of my sister - to sell his house instead of taking my suggestion and burning the %$!! thing down.  Actually, I'm not that much of a criminal anymore.  I found a buyer - a friend in The Program that I trust implicitly - who offered less money but would have bought the property As Is.  I thought this was the no-fuss way to get the house sold, an opinion held by exactly no one else and consequently followed by no one else, either.  My dad doesn't really need the extra money so I thought easy trumped greedy.

In this case, I was right.  The house sold to a woman who couldn't get financing.  Back on the market it went and sold quickly again - to a speculator who found thousands of dollars worth of damage that he insisted be repaired.  Back on the market to be sold again to the original woman who had magically repaired her credit history but who now wisely offered less money on the house than she had initially, no doubt because the house was still on the market.  Each one of these delays cost money because of the upkeep on the house - utilities, taxes, insurance, etc.  Add that sum to the real estate agent's commission and we were getting a lot closer to my friend's original offer lo these many month's hence, minus all of the emotional wear and tear on my sister and father.

To my credit I kept my fucking mouth shut through the whole circus.  How, you ask?  I have no idea how.

The final step was to transfer the deed from my father to the buyer, a request denied by the county tax assessor because, 60 years ago, the deed was made out to my father AND my mother -but not jointly - which meant my mother needed to rise from the grave - which she cheerfully would have done to save us all the trouble - to sign over the deed to my dad OR we had to probate her part of the estate.  Following all of this?  Still reading any of it?  Why, might I ask?
  
The point is that it was all I could do to keep my self from screaming: "I TOLD you so!!"  I was particularly interested in what the real estate agent was doing to earn her commission.  She didn't appear to be vetting anyone or researching anything.

Not a word from my mouth that wasn't pleasant and complimentary.

Long Run

It's interesting to me that we have a relative lack of people with mid-range sobriety: there are a ton of folks in the 1-5 year range and a handful with 20+ years but in the intervening years we seem to lose a lot of our momentum.  I guess we're not making the big, spectacular gains of our early sobriety so the work becomes much more . . . well, work-like and thusly unpleasant.  And it is, of course, easier to do the work when you're just one step ahead of a whole lot of mad people in hot pursuit.

The chair at our meeting last week was a young woman who had recently celebrated a year anniversary.  She remarked that she hadn't been as active in her recovery over the last few weeks and that she needed to do something about that.  I don't believe that I've seen her since.  Maybe she's going to some different meetings but I doubt it.

We're definitely in this for the long run.  This is a marathon not a 100 meter dash.

Relapse

Relapse:  To recur; to worsen, be aggravated; to slide or turn back into a former state or practice.

I had a new-ish guy call me yesterday and reveal that he thinks his best friend in The Program is using.  I quickly dispensed glib and insightful advice along these lines: "Uhhhhh.   Ummmmm.   Duhhhhhh" and other bon mots of equal worth.  It's really hard to tell someone that alcoholics drink sometimes - it's what we do - and that often the only support we can offer is to be there should the drinker want to talk about it.  There was nothing I hated more than having someone who wasn't drinking tell me I shouldn't drink.  I knew I was messing up - I didn't need anyone piling on.  I know I should stop eating breakfast cookies, too, but eat them I do.  It's isn't helpful to hear that maybe an apple would be a better choice.  I'm always going to choose the breakfast cake over the fresh fruit.

And I think we need to be careful that we don't gossip about a potential offender, too.  It's not our business to go around whispering: "I think so and so is drinking."  That doesn't help anyone and god help you if the guy isn't drinking and he finds out you've been telling people behind his back that he is.  That's burning your bridges, bombing the rubble, and burying the crap that's left  You can kiss that relationship good-bye.

That being said I personally don't take any crap from anyone.  If you want to drink and skulk around that's up to you but I'm not going to hang around with you.  It doesn't do me any good and it makes me mad when someone goes back out, especially someone I care about.  They've taken my trust and tossed it away.  When someone comes back to us I thank them for returning but I never tell them that what they did is OK.

Because it isn't.

Words of Wisdom

"I don't understand happiness only as someone just always smiling and laughing.  It's more like inner happiness, where you feel you have done everything right in your life, you haven't made anybody unhappy.  You have a certain kind of peace and balance in yourself, and you are not anxious about what will happen the next minute or the next day.  You let it go and you don't worry, and you lead a balanced life."

Interview with a 93 year old man.

FutBall

Opinion:  A belief that a person has formed on a topic or issue.

I learned long ago that no one wants my advice, probably because my own actions and the chaos resultant demonstrate that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.  I now believe that no one is interested in my opinions, either.  Most people believe what they believe and they aren't going to change based on what I say.  It's not like I'm coming up with new ways of looking at things.  I need to keep my mouth shut.  Nobody is interested in what I think of things, and I say this with a great deal of serenity and understanding.  I'm not changing my opinion very often, either.

I was at a meeting recently where a young woman celebrating a year of sobriety talked about losing some of the fire that we all have when we're brand spanking new in recovery.  I get that - recovery can be time-consuming and frustrating so when the early big gains start to diminish a lot of us drift away.  I haven't seen her since.  Huh.

At this same meeting a friend talked about getting his latest paycheck only to see that the IRS had garnished a big chunk of the money to satisfy back taxes that he owed.  He spent a lot of time in a government office getting the money restored and setting up a payment plan so future paychecks wouldn't be garnished as well.  He was not overjoyed at any of this.  I know that I thought that sobriety was going to be enough, that all would be forgiven.  I didn't sign up for Freedom that required Sacrifice.  I do know that I do not regret my past - I'm not afraid of anyone at this point.

Worry 101

The mind of an alcoholic and such matters . . . 

Laminate:  Material formed of thin sheets glued together.

A while back SuperK and I had the perfectly good carpet covering the floors of our trailer house ripped out so that we could install laminate flooring.  I didn't know what laminate was until I looked it up just now.  It's still somewhat unclear to me.  The stuff we have looks like wood so now our trailer house has a wood-like substance running from aluminum-shod wall to aluminum-shod wall.  We run a classy operation here.

We have been very happy with our new laminate floors.  A few months ago I happened to stumble across a news broadcast which alleged that there were types of laminate flooring where the thin sheets were glued together with a substance containing formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.  I did a little research and sure enough! - our laminate flooring was one of the offending brands.  So . . .  I'm living in a tin can pulsating with wave after wave of white-hot formaldehydic poison.

When I'm dying of something the best place to go is the internet, where I can confirm whatever irrational, paranoid thoughts I have pulsating through the fetid sewer that exists between my ears, and my research did not disappoint.

On a positive note I try to remember that I didn't bat an eye purchasing acid and pills and weed from guys who looked like they played lead guitar for a Norwegian death metal band, and I'm still walking the face of this earth, albeit a little more slowly than before.  If that didn't kill me I don't think this will, either.

And the facts . . . as facts are . . . are nuanced and inconclusive.  The test that found the formaldehyde was destructive in nature - the flooring was pulverized and then measured for formaldehyde so as long as we're not grinding up flooring and stuffing our mattresses with the debris we're probably OK.  Plus, the offending company mounted a robust defense debunking the alleged formaldehyde poisoning and a third party company also performed some testing which showed no off-gassing out of the ordinary plus we live in Vacation City where we have the windows open all of the time which one would assume would allow the poisoning fumes to vent plus did I mention that I used to drop acid by sucking a sheet of paper embossed with a picture of Satan that I bought off a dude in the back of a van at a Black Sabbath concert who advertised by yelling: "Acid!!  Weed!!  Quaaludes!!" at the top of his voice?

There is a seemingly endless supply of stupid things to worry about.

I'm off formaldehyde poisoning at this point and on to colon cancer.

Family Is Hard, Unless It's Someone Else's Family

I had back to back phone conversations with friends in The Program who are dealing with family situations right now - irritating family situations, as if there were any other kind.  It is amazing how we have to learn how to compromise, to get along with people who get under our skin from time to time.  One of the guys is on a vacation where a couple of his relatives are making what I consider pretty outrageous demands on everyone else without offering any concessions on their part.  I listened and I thought: "Well, tell them that you're going to do this and this and that , and they can go %$!! themselves if they don't like it."  I didn't say that but I did think it.  That I wouldn't have the chutzpah to do that with my family was immaterial to my desire to give him advice on what to do with his family.

We find ourselves in situations where we can't just do what we want, especially with family and jobs.  I don't think my buddy would put up with this kind of behavior from a friend.  It really is crappy behavior.  I know when I'm dealing with an individual who makes a lot of demands on me without offering much in return I go find someone else to talk to.  This, of course, is not practical when we're talking about in-laws and parents and the guy in the cubicle right next door.

The trick for me is to find that middle ground.  I'm not a doormat and I'm not a sultan - I'm somewhere in the middle.  Sometimes I think I avoid confrontation at my own expense, and then I remember that I'm the one with a Program, I'm the guy with the tools to handle life sanely.  Frankly, I don't know how people make it down the block without the tools I've got.

My friend really is a nice guy.  I wouldn't have been so generous with my spirit.  He's one of those guys who's going to be up in Heaven, peering through the sulfur and bubbling, molten limestone at me, wherever I end up.

Outside Issues

At my excellent, excellent men's meeting last night we're currently studying The Traditions and the entree served up was Tradition 10 which warns us about taking sides on outside issues.  It's a good Tradition that was undoubtedly born in a veritable shitstorm of controversy - none of the lessons we've learned have come easily.  We're lucky if we can get through a discussion of what kind of coffee cups to buy without a fistfight breaking out.  No doubt well-meaning members were trying to draw The Fellowship into taking sides on all kinds of worthy causes. 

The intent here is avoid anything that might be an excuse for the newcomer to bolt.  I know personally that I didn't want to be in a meeting and I looked hard and wide and deep for reasons that The Program wasn't for me.  And I found them, apparently, seeing as it took me 18 months to get sober.  If someone had been taking a public position on with which I vehemently disagreed I would have been out of there, and I was barely in there, anyway.

The conversation veered into how hard it is to listen to someone in the real world discussing controversial matters - religion, politics, morality, money - with which I might disagree.  I want to get in there and say my piece, make the offender see the error of his ways.  Now, granted my opinions on these things have been consistent for a long time - there's very little chance that I'm going to change my mind - and I'm in a Program that stresses open mindedness, so the chance that I'm going to cause a sea change in some blowhard holding forth at loud volume about the size of the federal government or the health of the church or appropriate sexual behavior is damn small.

Usually  I keep my mouth shut, an excellent position for my mouth to be in.  But I listen and I judge and then I go home and have long conversations, arguments, shouting matches with some dude who isn't there and who couldn't pick me out of a police line-up.  There's this one guy in particular who holds forth at a high volume at my exercise club, opining stupidly and offensively, in my opinion, on all matter of outside issues.  I don't know him.  He's always been friendly to me, giving me shit about how my little thrift-shop suit jacket is out of place at the pool.  Still, I go home and have extended arguments with him, in my head, debunking his stupid opinions.  The chance that he would change his mind is vanishingly small and the reasons for why I give a shit about his opinions are opaque even to me.

One of my friends last night said, in essence, that the world doesn't need me constantly weighing in on every last little thing going on.  The world doesn't need my opinion.  The world doesn't need me talking.  The world is going to be a better place if I try not to talk.  Think about it - how often has someone said to me: "Hey, Seaweed, what do you think about the Fed's policy on mortgage relief?"  Nobody cares.  They want to tell you about their opinion, not hear about yours.

Thing Is . . .

The thing is sometimes I have something to say and sometimes I don't.  That doesn't mean that when I don't have something to say that I don't say something just that I shouldn't open my mouth.  I get struck by things or feel insightful about a situation and it bubbles out.  Other times I sit slack-jawed, a thin string of drool hanging from my lip.  I don't know.

Ponder the moment.

When I was sick I was taking an aspirin and an Advil a few times a day because I felt so crappy. At some point I walked by a little bright orange aspirin and a little shit-brown Advil lying on a bookshelf next to our mantel clock, which is on a bookshelf for some reason, not the mantel.  I haven't looked at the mantel recently - maybe it's piled with books.  I don't know whether I had in mind to ingest this medicine and got distracted by some bright, shiny thing, forgetting about the intention completely, or whether I knew I had lost them relatively quickly, searched unsuccessfully for a bit, then replaced them with two of their brethren which I did successfully ingest.  They're staying put - it's what passes for art in my household.