FUN Seaweed

Fun:  Enjoyable; amusing; whimsical; flamboyant.  (Ed. Note: WTF?  I wouldn't put those four adjectives together to describe anything).
Pleasure: Gladness; satisfaction; gratification; happiness.

Here's what alcoholism does: It robs the afflicted of every last speck and mite of pleasure in life. That awful fact sucks big time but to make it worse it convinces the afflicted that it's the only sure source of enjoyment left.  Causes misery, promises pleasure.  That's quite the party trick.  That's quite the magic act.

How often have we said: "It's the only thing I have left."

As I struggle with the belief that I do indeed know what's best for everyone and everything in the universe, I justify the nagging wish that my dad would throw in the proverbial towel by my estimation that he is navigating from one miserable moment to the next.  I think alcohol, the rapacious creditor, has placed a margin call on my father's psyche.  The Book says we eventually reach a point where we can't imagine a life with alcohol and we can't imagine a life without it.  That's quite a point to reach.  The "jumping off point."  The point of no return - can't get there from here but can't make it back home, either.

I know that I had personally traded the pleasure of living for the fun of drinking, or what I imagined with fun.  I told someone at a meeting once that I was just a guy who liked to party. "You're not partying, Seaweed," he said.  "You're just drinking."  That's quite a distinction.  It made me sit up right straight and in a hurry, too.

I take a lot of satisfaction in my life today.  I wouldn't call it a fun life.  I would call it a satisfying, calm, centered life.  I'm not sure everyone gets that.  I have a cousin who always asks me: "So what are you doing for FUN?!"  Well, I meditate and read and listen to people when they talk to me?  That doesn't sound as good as taking a hit of acid and then riding roller coasters.  That sounds FUN!  I'm happy-ish because I maneuver through life with a minimum of fuss, with an ability to take it as it comes, to not fight everything and everyone.

For those of you not in The Program I do have to admit that I plagiarized half of what I wrote today.  It's good stuff.  It's hard to improve on it.