Problem People

Problem:  A difficulty that has to be resolved or dealt with.  (Ed. Note: Unless you're an active alcoholic at which point it becomes something to avoid, bury, or run from, screaming into the night).

Book study this morning.  Rarely have I attended a bad book study meeting.  Here's some stuff . . . 

"If our circumstances happened to be good, we no longer dreaded a change for the worse, for we had learned that these troubles could be turned into great values."  I like to think of this as the concept of The Other Shoe Must Surely Drop.  First of all, what happens when the first shoe drops?  And why is that shoe an OK shoe and the second shoe is the portent of some disaster?  A question for a wiser man, I think.  Anyway, the point is that if things were really, really going well for me then I was inevitably thrown into a deep depression, quaking in dread that The End Was Near.  Who lives like that?  I was almost happier when my life was a disaster because I could say to myself: "Well, that was inevitable and I deserved it anyway."  If I was miserable what could you do to me?  If I was happy you could snatch it away.

Early on in our Fellowship a bunch of doctors and psychologists made an exhaustive study of some alcoholics to see if they could come up with common personality traits.  "They finally came up with a conclusion that shocked the members of that time.  These distinguished men had the nerve to say that most of the alcoholics under investigation were still childish, emotionally sensitive, and grandiose."

Well, that sounds like a whole lot of work to come up with an obvious conclusion.  It apparently pissed off our early members who were probably easily pissed off.

"We have been talking about problems because we are problem people who have found a way up and out, and who wish to share our knowledge of that way with all who can use it."

OK, that I can use.