Happy, Happy, Happy

"We cannot find true happiness by looking for it  Seeking pleasure does not bring happiness in the long run, only disillusionment.  Do not seek to have this fullness of joy by seeking pleasure.  It cannot be done that way.  Happiness is a by-product of living the right kind of a life.  True happiness comes as a result of living in all respects the way you believe God wants you to live, with regard to yourself and to other people."

"I was selfishly trying to be happy and therefore I was unhappy most of the time.  I have found that selfishly seeking pleasure does not bring true happiness."

Willpower

"You were meant to be at home and comfortable in the world.  Yet some people live a life of quiet desperation.  This is the opposite of being at home and at peace in the world.  Let your peace of mind be evident to those around you.  Let others see that you are comfortable and seeing it, know that it springs from your trust in a Higher Power.  The dull, hard way of resignation is not God's way."

"I don't know shit."  A member of A.A.

There were 11 people at the meeting today: two homeless people (who attend regularly, maybe for the coffee instead of for the meeting); 4 people with less than 30 days; one guy with 3 months and a woman with about a year; and a couple of us with multiple years.  At first I was irked about the low attendance but boy, do I feel grateful now.

Sometimes the most painful and unpleasant experiences lead to the best outcomes.  I was decommissioned for a job once - taken off a salary and losing benefits like health care, a car allowance, expenses, and the like - which was the worst thing that ever happened to me.  A couple of years later I'm making the most money I've ever made and experiencing the most job satisfaction that I've ever felt, operating my own little sales company as the CEO, CFO, and CTO, marveling at the best thing that ever happened to me.  Or, "I don't know shit."  I know what is good action to take but I don't know what outcomes are in my best interest.

"It is when we try to make our will conform with God's that we begin to use it rightly.  To all of us, this was a most wonderful revelation.  Our whole trouble had been the misuse of willpower.  We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's intention for us."  12&12, P. 40.

Holiday A.A.

 "A smile, a word of encouragement, a word of love, goes winged on its way, simple though it may seem, while the might words of an orator fall on deaf ears.  Use up the odd moments of your day in trying to do some little thing to cheer up another person.  Boredom comes from thinking too much about yourself."

Thanksgiving Day.  Good attendance at the meeting this morning - regulars, regulars who work and can't normally attend, several people from out of town, a handful of newcomers including a dude who has had a drink already today.  The topic was . . . wait for it . . . Gratitude.  The leader talked about The End when he was "out of answers."  I like that phrase.  He also said that he was "broken."  I like that word, too, preferring it to sick.  I'm not a sick alcoholic - I'm a broken one.

I usually try to go to meetings on holidays because there are usually folks there who are traveling and folks who don't have any place to go.  Holidays can be a major source of depression and loneliness.  One Christmas Eve SuperK and I went to our regular Friday night meeting which usually had an attendance of 30 or so.  It ended up being the two of us and a couple of people from out of town who were suffering through family dysfunction.  My sponsor and I volunteered to run a Big Book meeting in a Cincinnati jail every Thursday night.  On Thanksgiving one year one dude showed up - the inmates had free time on that holiday which they chose to spend relaxing and watching TV.  "I guess everyone else is cured today," the lone attendee quipped.  We had a good meeting.  I wondered how the absentees were going to fare when they were released.  They literally wouldn't walk across the room to go to a meeting so what were the chances that they were going to drive somewhere after they were free, battling all the temptations of family and girlfriends and easy access to drugs and booze? 

Not good, I surmised.

Terrible Precedent

"I have learned to be less negative and more positive.  I used to take a negative view of almost everything.  Most people, in my estimation, were bluffing.  There seemed to be very little good in the world, but lots of hypocrisy and sham.  People could not be trusted."

"If we give out hate, we will become hateful.  If we are resentful, we will be resented.  If we do not like people, we will not be liked by people.  Revengefulness is a power poison in our systems.  If you would help even those you dislike, you have to see that there is nothing in you to block the way, to keep God's grace from using you.  Your own pride and selfishness are the greatest blocks."

We're still under a mask mandate for indoor gatherings in SoCal.  The good news is that our CoVid case rates are remarkably low; the bad news is that you should wear a mask inside - if following rules is important to you - and this simple act has taken on overt political tones.  I don't particularly like wearing a mask but I wear one - it's a thoughtful and solicitous act that shows concern for the people around me and I don't find putting one on for an hour an outrageous violation of my right to do whatever the fuck I want whenever I fucking want to do it.   I'm distressed that people who go to meetings where you don't wear masks tend to be conservative and people that follow the mandate tend to be liberal, more or less.  I almost feel that we're splitting into two groups and this is terrible for A.A. - so much of our strength comes from the fact that we are "people who wouldn't ordinarily mix."  Being around people who think differently than me has been very helpful over the years.  There have been plenty of people that I understood held very different political, social, and religious views but we always managed to keep this outside issue crap out of The Rooms.  Unfortunately, the mask is a very visible marker of how you feel about things, like wearing a T-shirt with the name of your favorite politician on it.

I had a guy who I really like ask me to help him go through The Steps.  Sure, love to, thanks for asking, working with newcomers is important to my sobriety.  In the discussion about how and when to do this I asked if he had been vaccinated.  I'm not a kid and I've got my family to consider.  "No, I'm sort of a conspiracy guy," he said.  Well, that was pretty much that.  If he's against vaccinations that's none of my business but I'm not going to sit down, inside, in close contact with someone who could easily test positive for the virus.  I ponder sometimes who is going to the anti-mask meetings and think: "Pffftt, not really the kind of people I like anyway."

Terrible.  Terrible to be in this position.

Outside Issue!

"Who am I to judge other people?  Have I proved by my great success in life that I know all the answers?  Exactly the opposite.  On the basis of my record, am I a fit person to be a judge of other people?  Hardly.  In A.A I have learned not to judge people.  I am so often wrong.  Let the results of what they do judge them.  It's not up to me."

"When I think of all who have gone before me, I realize that I am only one, not very important person.  What happens to me is not so very important after all.  As you look back over your life, it is not too difficult to believe that what you went through was for a purpose, to prepare you for some valuable work in life.  Everything in your life may well have been planned by God to make you of some use in the world."

It distresses me that my daily life has become so full of angry, confrontational, dismissive interactions.  I've found myself being swept up by this negative energy.  I'm finding stuff to criticize way too often.  This is a difficult time for many of us.  A therapist friend of mine said that her caseload exploded as the world has tried to come out of the pandemic so I know that I'm not the only one suffering from the angst of pandemic fatigue.

I've been stepping back a bit from my A.A. life.  I feel this defensiveness even seeping into The Rooms.  I've more or less let my current sponsor drift away and have begun to reconnect with a temporary sponsor who helped me during our transition from Portland to SoCal.  After a lull of a few weeks I called the real sponsor - a good man who I love a lot - and he shared this story: a new woman came to their meeting where the county mandate is roundly ignored and when she pointed this out was shouted down with the facile explanation of "outside issue!  outside issue!"  I'm not sure how obeying the law became an outside issue but there you go.

So much for taking care of the newcomer.

OTHER People !?!

"To do what is best for the other person, to put what is best for him or her above my own desires.  To put God first, the other person second, and myself last."

"We cannot find true happiness by looking for it.  Seeking pleasure does not bring happiness in the long run, only disillusionment.  Do not seek to have this fullness of joy by seeking pleasure.  It cannot be done that way.  Happiness is a by-product of living the right kind of a life.  True happiness comes as a result of living in all respects the way you believe God wants you to live, with regard to yourself and to other people."

These are tough concepts for us super-self-absorbed people to grasp.  What's best for the other person?  How do I think my Higher Power wants me to act?  While I was still drinking my motto when I encountered a long line of cars queued up to go where I wanted to get was: "You can always get in."  I was a real asshole about that.  I never thought that other people were as important as I am - well, unfortunately I still think that too much of the time - and I never considered that this selfishness made me deeply unhappy.  When I get something at someone else's expense it always left me feeling hollow and incomplete but when I'm trying to be of service to others I'm deeply contented.

The Long Run

"There is a time for everything.  We should learn to wait patiently until the right time comes.  Easy does it.  We waste our energies in trying to get things before we are ready to have them, before we have earned the right to receive them.  A great lesson we have to learn is how to wait with patience.  We can believe that all our life is a preparation for something better to come when we have earned the right to it.  We can believe that God has a plan for our lives and that this plan will work out in the fullness of time."

Patient:  Willing to wait if necessary; not losing one's temper while waiting.

For this alcoholic "waiting patiently" is an oxymoron - two things that don't go together.  It's like saying "kind cruelty" or "happy disaster."  If I have to wait it will necessarily be with impatience.

"We can bow to God's will in anticipation of the thing happening which will, in the long run, be the best for all concerned.  It may not always seem the best thing at the present time, but we cannot see as far ahead as God can.  The future looks dark no more. I do not even look at it, except when necessary to make plans.  I try to let the future take care of itself.  The future will be made up of todays and todays, stretching out as short as now and as long as eternity."

This idea that I can't know what's best for me in the long run is integral to my recovery.    This is faith that my Higher Power knows what's best for me in the long run.  I don't have to understand it and I don't have to like it but it's going to be in my best interest to accept it.  I know that the long run is the only run I have to be concerned about

Keep It Complicated, Again!

 Here's my latest screed about the Keep It Complicated meeting.  On Sunday The Malcontents lose access to their meeting space because the "church" where they meet holds "services," so some of them come back to the original KIC basement.  I have avoided this particular day, mistrusting my ability to place principles before personalities.  SuperK and I took a short trip last week so I didn't attend my regular meetings.  I decided to go on Sunday.  I was vaguely uneasy about this.  I vaguely sensed I wasn't being any too smart.  It wasn't quite as bad as putting whiskey in my milk but there was a good chance my attitude would go sideways.

When I got up and started to make a coffee I saw the machine was out of beans AND the container that holds the spent grounds was full.  This is no big deal but it seemed sort of portentous.  Because SuperK isn't up yet I try to be as quiet as I can and all of this manipulation can be noisy.  I then noticed that the tray underneath the machine that catches any overspill was full and when I tried to slide it out it splashed spent coffee grounds and dirty water all over the counter and the floor and me and this caused me to panic and speed up at which point I knocked my coffee cup - full of coffee - into the sink, breaking the cup in the process.

There's a story about a guy who has a minor problem with his cat first thing in the morning as he's trying to get out of the house and go to work.  The problem pissed him off but he ignored it and this caused a series of minor but increasingly disastrous consequences to happen.  "I should have kicked the cat," he muses later.  That's how I was feeling as I finally made my coffee - I should have just gotten back into bed, fully clothed, and pulled the cover over my head.

I showed up at the meeting a little late.  I'm wary of the malcontents and wanted to avoid having to socialize with them.  There they all were - lined up in a little group against the wall, very few of them wearing masks, a couple actually sitting under one of the brightly-colored signs the church put up here and there saying: "Notice - Mask mandate in effect for anyone using our room."  I'm not sure if the malcontents were making an overt political statement or they just don't give a shit if they're disrespecting others.

Yes, yes, I know: Why am I still attending this meeting that gives me so much trouble?

I don't know what disturbs me the most: that they're ignoring a county wide mandate that requires all people to wear masks while they're inside any public space or that they're flaunting the church requirement that masks be worn or that they don't care that all of the regular attendees were wearing masks and that many of them have chosen this meeting specifically because masks are required.  Maybe I'm not working hard enough on Principles Before Personalities.  Maybe politics and social policy is intruding on our Traditions and infecting The Rooms.  Maybe these folks are acting like assholes.  Probably a little of everything.  I know the solution is within no matter the cause of the irritation.

I'm not enjoying my Alcoholics Anonymous experience at the moment.  In my particular town there has indeed been a resorting of people to different meetings and there have been a lot of folks who have disappeared from the places where I used to see them.

Willie had a sponsor from Cleveland who jabbed him in the chest one time when Willie was equivocating on A.A. protocol: "Willie, you've been around long enough to know what good A.A. is and you need to stand up and say something."  His sponsor didn't say anything about helping him up if he gets punched in the nose.

My A.A. experience right now is not a good one.  I certainly have gone through periods of time where the recovery rooms I frequent have annoyed me but I've never found myself in this spot.  There's a guy I know who takes some time off A.A. every now and then.  I didn't think this was a very good idea, even taking into account his 40+ years of sobriety, so I asked him about it once.  He said that sometimes the routine of attending meetings prevents him from taking up other tasks and activities that might be helpful - it becomes a mindless routine.  Willie and I talked about the political creep into A.A. - he's seeing it in the upper Midwest, too.  We wonder if picking up some other recovery activity might be a helpful substitution - a yoga class or a more formal period of meditation.

Never thought I'd see the day. 

The Alcohol Questionnaire

 "The future looks dark no more.  I do not even look at it, except when necessary to make plans.  I try to let the future take care of itself.  The future will be made up of todays and todays, stretching out as short as now and as long as eternity."

The guy who led the meeting talked about taking one of those tests with 15 or 20 questions that help you decide if you have a drinking problem or not.  Like all alcoholics he lied repeatedly but still qualified as a problem drinker.  Why are we all amazed when this happens?  I think I answered in the affirmative on every question except for the one about car accidents and DUIs which - amazingly enough - I avoided.  People who don't have a drinking problem don't wonder if they have a drinking problem.  They don't think about drinking any more than they think about pasta.

Help is what someone needs and not what I want to give them.  The leader talked about the intense discomfort he felt when he was in a social situation in early sobriety.  We can all identify with that feeling that we didn't quite belong, that we didn't quite get it, that we were in the bathroom when the instruction manuals for life were being passed out.  Most of us that stay sober learn to soldier through this discomfort, often by doing things with other alcoholics so we can fuck up and not pay serious consequences.  He was playing cards at his sponsor's house one evening and excused himself for a minute to get something to drink.  When he came back his sponsor said: "Next time maybe ask if you can get anyone else anything."  He didn't start the conversation by saying: "Hey, you selfish asshole . . . "  This guy wasn't doing anything deliberately wrong - he had just spent his entire life thinking about himself.  It just never occurred to him to consider the feelings of anyone else.

Psychos in Church

 I heard this story at a meeting today . . . 

Dude gets his third DUI after running over a pedestrian who was so grievously injured that he wasn't expected to survive.  The cop who arrested the dude said: "This is your third felony DUI - if that guy dies you're looking at 25 years to life."  This, in Alcoholics Anonymous, is known as An Attention Getter.  A court date is set.  Dude's lawyer calls and says he has some bad news - the runned-over guy was coming to testify at the sentencing.  Apparently this usually indicates that the offended party is looking for his pound of flesh.

The dude's sponsor accompanied him to the sentencing.  The runned-over guy shows up and sits down next to the sponsor.  When he's asked for his testimony he says this: "This dude isn't a criminal.  He's a alcoholic.  He's sick."  The judge sentences the dude to 30 days in jail, not prison.  Never drank again.

My contention has always been that most alcoholics don't respond well to being told what to do but that we are good at watching sullenly from the dark corners of our minds what other people do.  Talk is cheap.  Actions speak louder than words.  There are plenty of us in this world who talk a good game but don't back it up with good actions.  Like some pious church-goers in their Sunday best who behave badly most of the rest of the time - it doesn't matter if you're a deacon for an hour once a week but a psycho the rest of the time.

I Don't Know Shit

"Not until you have failed can you learn true humility.  Humility arises from a deep sense of gratitude to God for giving you the strength to rise above past failures.  The humble person is tolerant of others' failings, and does not have a critical attitude toward the foibles of others.  Humble people are hard on themselves and easy on others."

Ahhhh. . . . . fuck me.

"The A.A. members who sponsored me told me in the beginning that I would not only find a way to live without having a drink, but that I would find a way to live without wanting to drink.  A.A. taught me that willingness to believe was enough for a beginning.

From the story "Freedom From Bondage" from The Big Book.  I vaguely remember entering the phase where alcohol didn't appear to be under a neon spotlight - no matter where I looked I could always see that brightly lit drink or bottle sparkling in the periphery, like my retina was detaching or I had ingested LSD.  I wasn't ignoring the alcohol anymore - I just wasn't hyper-aware of its presence.  That was very freeing.  I could be in places where alcohol was served without being held captive by its presence.

Here's the writer's take on the insanity of alcoholic drinking: "Rationalization is giving a socially acceptable reason for socially unacceptable behavior, and socially unacceptable behavior is a form of insanity."  My take is "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

"If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free.  If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free.  Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free.  Even when you don't really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway.  Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want if for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love."

I was surprised to read this section of the book.  I even had it underlined in my personal copy but could not ever remember having read it before.

Two weeks!  That's a long time to pray for some miserable son of a bitch I'd like to throttle.

At the meeting this morning there were seven of us: Me, 30 days, 2 days (free from jail after crashing a car drunk), 4 months, 9 months, and 11 months, and a homeless woman who was too incoherent to add up her time.  I swear that the 4 month guy who led chose "I don't know shit" as the meeting topic.

Kept me sober.

More Black Sabbath Stories

The dude who lead the meeting this morning was celebrating his two year birthday (if you're from California) or two year anniversary (for us Midwesterners).  That's a long time to stay sober no matter where you're from.  He shared a story about leaving a company where he drove an over-the-road truck, explaining that he needed to stay connected in Alcoholics Anonymous and the time away from home was interfering with his recovery.  He recently rejoined this company - at their request - and was called into the owner's office on his second day back.  He walks in, a little wary, to find all of the staff gathered around a two year birthday cake.  After the off-key singing of Happy Birthday, several people came up and shared that they were also in A.A. or had a family member in A.A. or one that needed to be.  Our anonymity is important to us because not everyone gets what we're doing in here but it is amazing how many lives alcoholism and drug addiction touches  . . . .  and ruins.

On my 15 year anniversary I attended a Black Sabbath concert.  I was nervous about attending, almost cancelling at the last minute and eating the cost of the ticket.  When we showed up (I went with a friend in A.A.) it was immediately apparent that all was well.  What I saw was a ton of people my age who never managed to quit drinking/using and it was not a compelling sight.  I didn't think: "Wow, I wish I had kept drinking/using."  Base on what I saw these people weren't thriving in life.  I don't think a lot of them had early meetings the next day.  They didn't seem to be too worried about the consequences of a late night of debauchery in the middle of the week.  On the off-chance they did have a job to go to I don't think they their work required a sharp mind and a steady hand.

The concert was great, by the way.  The nice thing about not spending all of your money on alcohol and drugs and lawyers and car repairs is that you can buy really, really nice seats.  We had a blast although we couldn't find our car after it was over.  We were so flustered by all the drinking and smoking and drug-selling going on in the parking lot as we made our way to the venue we totally forgot where we parked.

I went to a meeting in Mexico City where I met the man who ran the cafeteria where I ate lunch every day when I was going to college in Philadelphia.

I met a woman at a meeting in Munich who lived a couple of miles from my childhood home in Cincinnati.

I went to a meeting in Huntsville, Alabama - after telling an elaborate series of lies to a coworker who accompanied me to this technical training so that I could sneak off with the car we had rented - and met the wife of the man who was running the training session.

I ran into a guy on the street in Stockholm that I had seen the previous day in an English speaking A.A. meeting.  I thought: "Here I am, 5000 miles away from home, in a foreign country, in a city I've never visited before, and I just spent some time talking to a guy I met yesterday."

I don't think we realize how many people are affected by these diseases, either directly or indirectly.  And I'm glad that some of the stigma attached to them has ebbed away over the years.  "I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous" doesn't shock people like it used to.

You're Looking At The Problem

 Generalized Anxiety Disorder (or GAD) is marked by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry about everyday life events for no obvious reason. People with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder tend to always expect disaster and can't stop worrying about health, money, family, work, or school.  It is especially true that the level of worry is out of all proportion to the events or circumstances.  It is especially insidious that often there is no obvious reason for the anxiety.

It's amazing to me to watch the expression on the faces of people when I try to explain this mild mental illness that plagues me.  It is a real thing.  I am not making it up.  It is an official medical/psychological condition.  It's hard to try make people understand how miserable it is to know that what you're thinking and feeling is illogical and illusory but still be powerless - or at least unable - to stop it.  I say:"It's like trying to reason with your two-year old about the plausibility of a monster being in the closet or to explain to your dog that she should just relax - it's only thunder."

I wonder what an anxiety-free life would feel like?  It must be incredible to not feel a nagging sense of dread about everything.  I can't imagine what this might feel like.

The woman who led the meeting this morning talked about sponsorship and what a weird concept it can sound like to a newcomer.  "What's my copay?" she wanted to ask the woman she asked.  "Where's the instruction sheet and my obligations list?"  I think my copay is too high.  That's why I'm not getting too many new sponsees.  When someone asks I usually say: "You can't afford me.  But there are some lower priced sponsors.  Let me introduce you around."  Relax.  Just pick someone.  You're not getting married.  You're not signing a legal contract.  Sponsors lose sponsees and sponsees drift away all the time, for all kinds of reasons.  I've never been offended in the least when a sponsee quits calling me.  I wish them the best of luck and I thank them for putting some faith in me because it's an honor to be asked.

What are you going to do about it?  That's a great response when someone is bitching about something.

A bumper sticker I saw recently: "You're Looking At The Problem."

Nature V Nurture

Some quotes from our Big Book study today:

"The mental twists that led up to my drinking began many years before I ever took a drink."

"A.A. taught me that it wasn't so much the events that happened to me as a child but rather the way I reacted to what happened to me as a child."

"As I entered my teenage years I became aware of emotions that I hadn't counted on such as restlessness, anxiety, fear, and insensitivity."

Nature: The innate characteristics of a thing; what something will tend by its own constitution, to be or do; distinct from what is intended or encouraged.

Nurture:  To encourage, especially the growth or development of something.

The story reinforced my belief that why the alcoholism began isn't as important as making sure I understand that the solution lies within.  There's a line somewhere in the literature that suggests that the reasons we had for drinking were manipulated to fit conditions that we found ourselves in.  We became alcoholics whether we're smothered with love or receive none at all.  The salient point is that we find alcohol tamps down these emotions that we hadn't counted on and didn't enjoy.

When we want to overanalyze things we get into the theoretical discussion as to whether we were born alcoholic or we became alcoholic as the result of our upbringing or circumstances.  I think both factors must be considered.  I know that when I describe how alcohol makes me feel that the effect is much different from what a non-alcoholic will report.  Similarly, I'm sure that some people get started because of the headwinds they encounter from their families or material circumstances.  We do point out, however, that alcoholism is no respecter of class or education and that these cannot be given as excuses as to why we can't stop drinking.

It's always amusing listening to people bitch about their parents.  Jesus, what a thankless job to try to raise a neurotic, childish, grandiose, overly sensitive human being.  Talk about a no win situation.

Delusions

I heard this in the meeting today from a man with a long, long sobriety: "I'm comfortable with my delusions."  I had to laugh out loud.  I get it - I'm comfortable with my delusions, too.  I believe his point was that he had gotten to a place where he was comfortable with who he was.  One of my oft repeated memes is that I had to go through everything I went through to become the person I am today - a person that I like.

I led the meeting and referenced this phrase from Step Two of the 12&12: "We had not even prayed rightly.  We had always said, 'Grant me my wishes' instead of 'Thy will be done.' The love of God and man we understood not at all.  Therefore we remained self-deceived, and incapable of receiving enough grace to restore us to sanity."  Last time I led I read from Appendix II which discusses the Spiritual Experience.  I almost always read out of one of our books - the stuff therein is better than anything I can come up with.  Obviously, this is something I'm struggling with and getting feedback from so many different people helps.  My atheist friend spoke first and said this was the second time in 10 days he was so uncomfortable that he almost left the meeting.  I laughed out loud again.  My work is done here, I told him after the meeting.

Clearly, I'm bombarding the group with my difficulty in turning my body over to the care of my Higher Power.  Clearly, what I'm doing is working my ass off trying to get the result I want vis-a-vis any physical discomfort I'm feeling.  Clearly, I'm in charge.  There is nothing worse than me in charge.  One of the members said that true acceptance occurs when I quit trying to mold the world to my own liking and get comfortable with things as they are.  My tendency is to concentrate on the "courage to change the things I can" instead of the"serenity to accept the things I cannot change."  I find myself trying more and more and more things to bend God's will to mine.  God has a pretty tough will.  I've yet to win one of these bending contests.  Someone in Indianapolis once told me: "Quit boxing with God - he has longer arms than you do."

One member shared this technique for finding out God's will: Just be a nice person.  Just be nice today.  You don't have to do anything amazing or earth shattering.  Be nice to everyone.  That's an easy definition of God's will.

I try to share what I'm feeling and going through with my brothers and sisters.  No matter what it is it's a lot healthier for me when it's out than when it's in.  My thinking - kept to myself - is a pile of shit.  I need to bounce it off other people.  When I had my first extended bout of anxiety after the death of my parents I kept everything inside until I was a high pressure cooker ready to detonate.  I finally told SuperK, who had no idea.  We are so good massaging our public face that we get good at fooling those people who are closest to us and most capable of helping us out.  Sometimes my wife doesn't want to tell me what she's thinking because she's afraid it'll sound harsh and judgmental and this - of course - is when I hear the things that are most helpful.

Seaweed: Grinder

Sometimes you just have to grind it out.  Sweat and grit.  This is a term used for football players: "He's a grinder."  It can be a good quality and it can be a bad quality.  I'm trying to quit coffee at the moment and it's hard.  I don't drink it because I need to wake up - I drink it because it gives me a charge, a buzz, I feel different after I drink it and for me different is the attraction.  I've needed to quit for the longest time.  I make plans and then I fuck around with the system to try to get around the fact that I need to quit - I mix in decaf or I try black tea or I wait until later in the day before I have my first cup.  Some of these provide a temporary solution but the Creep inevitably returns.  Part of the reason is when I greatly reduce my consumption of a psychoactive substance my tolerance goes down so the next time I use it an outsized reaction occurs, which I like, and the substance begins drawing me further down the rabbit hole.

There was a woman on the Zoom meeting today who was having trouble with her internet connection.  It was pretty trippy.  Her voice would slow way down, get real deep and low, as her computer buffered, and then the lagging audio would squirt out in a high, fast Chipmunk voice.  It was cool.  Very psychedelic.

"For we can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic."  Step 10, P. 91.  

Whew.  The word "automatic" indicates that we have to do a lot of failing and a lot of practice until this happens.

Good phrase: I have lots of excuses and no reasons.

I'm not going to be comfortable in this life until I develop the willingness to admit when I'm wrong AND to forgive when the fault lies with another. 

Whew.  My friends were killing me with wisdom this morning.

God Talk

"We only fail when we trust too much on our own strength.  Do not feel bad about your weakness.  When you are weak, that is when God is strong to help you.  Trust God enough, and your weakness will not matter.  God is always strong to save."

In thinking of God, doubts and fears leave us.  Instead of those doubts and fears, there will flow into our hearts such faith and love as is beyond the power of material things to give, and such peace as the world can neither give or take away.  And with God, we can have the tolerance to live and let live."

I realize this is all fodder for those who think A.A. is too religious.  Too much God-Talk.  I get it.  But for those of us who have come to rely on a Higher Power there is much comfort to be found in the idea that our weakness can draw the greatest strength out of that Power, that an awareness of his presence can banish all of the negative thoughts and fears that stalk our serenity. 

"There is such a thing as being too loyal to any one group.  Do I feel put out when another group starts and some members of my group leave it and branch out into new territory?  Or do I send them out with my blessing?  Do I visit that new offshoot group and help it along?  Or do I sulk in my own tent?  A.A. grows by the starting of new groups all the time.  I must realize that it's a good thing for a large group to split up into smaller ones, even if it means that the large group - my own group - becomes smaller."

And I realize that this reminder will serve as fodder for anyone who thinks I've bitched too much about the trials and tribulations of the Keep It Complicated group sundering.  It's always good for me to remember that the more different groups we have the better chance we have of connecting with new people.  We don't want to have one big group.  We want to have thousands of them, spread all over, meeting at different times and places.

Nobody is Thinking About You!

From the Big Book: "As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.  We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day 'Thy will be done.' "

From the 12&12:  " Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen."

When I keep my mouth shut I have a lot of trouble putting my foot in there.  I can't remember the last time I got into hot water for not talking.  I can remember thousands of times I got into trouble after I did some talking.  I've gotten in trouble three or four times already today and it's 8 in the morning.

Stress:  Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.

There you have it.  I'm merely an animal.  A big, fancy animal but an animal nonetheless.  Sex, food and water, status in my community - shit, gerbils have those characteristics.

Feelings aren't facts. This dovetails nicely with the idea that No One Is Thinking About You.  The leader shared an anecdote today where he felt he was treated rudely by a fellow A.A.  It was quite an amusing story - he had clearly blown something minor into something major.  He was still steamed about it two days later.  It was pointed out that the person who had given offense had not thought of him once in that two days.  Nobody is thinking about you!  They're not doing anything to you!  They're thinking about themselves.

I had a much beloved T-shirt once that said "Whatever . . . ."  I should have paid more attention to that T-shirt.  The writing should have been backwards so every time I looked in a mirror it clearly told me what to do.

When I was working I had a home office.  Every now and then I'd get frosted about something at which point I'd type a cleverly worded, justifiably outraged email to someone.  I'd walk next door and get SuperK so she could put her stamp of approval on it. We're a team, after all.  This was inevitably her response: "You're not saying that . . . or that.  You can say half of that.  And you're taking that out.  You can keep these two lines (the greeting and my signature)."  It was all very deflating.  It also keep me out of a lot of scalding hot water.

Seaweed Sucks!

 I was sitting by the pool yesterday when a woman from the community that I'm friends with responded to my greeting by saying that she was pretty upset.  I inquired as to the cause - she said that one of the women in the tight circle she's part of refuses to get vaccinated and this is alienating her from all the other women in this clique who are all in their 70s and 80s and worried that she's potentially exposing them to the virus.   She added she was healthy and wasn't going to do it.  The consequences for her is that she is slowly being iced out of the group, the icing being accelerated by her refusal to wear a mask when the group activities are inside (contravening both a county mask mandate and one that our community has put in place - it is a 55+ community after all).  My friend knows I have a science background so she asked: "What can I say to her?  What advice do you have?"

I could just look at her for a couple of beats and say: "Not really.  I don't think you can say anything to her.  I could explain the science but she wouldn't listen to a word of it.  Her mind is made up."

It's very frustrating.  I try not to think of people who behave in ways that I don't agree as idiots but it's getting harder and harder.  And then - because our Fellowship stresses rigorous self-examination - it brought to mind what people who tried to get me to stop drinking and using during my run must have thought when I offered my flimsy and irrational excuses.

There was an incident at college one year where a large group was in the Quad of the complex where I lived, milling about on a Saturday night, cheerfully drunk and high, after live music ended.  Someone grabbed a mike, hooked it up to a stereo, and blasted the famous Network line: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"  The crowd got worked-up in a very good natured way and decided to go to one of the other dorm complexes called Hill House.  We poured out of the Quad and made our way down the streets shouting: "Hill House sucks!  Hill House sucks!"  Again, it was all very light-hearted as we stormed into the lobby of Hill House and continued to chant.  Security was there and didn't let us past reception but it never occured to me that this could get out of hand, if only by accident.  This is one of the few times (maybe the only time) in my life where I got swept up into that kind of group mentality.  I wondered what I would have done if the group had tried to force their way past security and into the building?  It never crossed my mind that a fight could have started or an edgy security guard could have felt threatened and started whaling on kids with a nightstick.  

This is sort of how I see people who get caught up in the whirlwind of group thinking.  A lot of these people are smart enough to see the bullshit but they're too busy shouting: "Something sucks!  Something sucks!"  What is it anyway?  Willful ignorance?  Intellectual incuriosity?  Feeling alienated and being accepted into a clique?  What was I doing in the college crowd, behaving in a way that was foreign to me?

Seaweed sucks!  Seaweed sucks!

Ceased Fighting

"And we have ceased fighting anyone or anything - even alcohol.  For by this time sanity will have returned.  It is easy to let up on our spiritual program and rest on our laurels.  We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.  We are not cured of alcoholism.  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."

I've always liked this section of the Big Book.  Sometimes these few paragraphs that we read after finishing our discussion of Step Nine are termed the Tenth Step Promises.  It's explained to us that alcohol has lost most of its power over us.  We don't avoid it and we aren't drawn to it.  We are placed in a position of neutrality.  

I spent most of my first two years of sobriety hyper-aware of alcohol.  I knew who was drinking it and how much they had consumed.  I couldn't go to bars to listen to music or to rock concerts and even sporting events were painful at times.  These were all excuses to drink.  I went to the baseball stadium to get drunk.  The fact that there was a diverting game simultaneously happening was so much background hiss.  If they didn't serve beer I would have stayed home and watched it on TV.

Fit: Suitable; proper; in good shape; physically well.

"This is how we react as long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."

Tolerance:  An acceptance of or patience with the beliefs, opinions, or practices of others.

"Love and tolerance of others is our code."

Show Time

"There is always a temptation to speak beyond your own experience, in order to make a good impression.  This is never effective.  What does not come from the heart does not reach the heart.  What comes from personal experience and a sincere desire to help the other person reaches the heart."

I love the feeling of giving a good speech at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  You know what I'm talking about - people are nodding or laughing and I'm thinking: "Awwwwwright - Show Time!"  This is why I spend half of the meeting preparing my remarks.  I want to sound good and wise and insightful.  I don't care what you're sharing - I care about the impression I'm making.  This is bad enough but what makes it worse is that I got a schtick for most topics.  I got a little speech I can recite that sounds good but may not be what I'm currently feeling.  I love pitch meetings or those where the leader calls on people.  I can listen better when I'm not sure I'm going to get to talk.

I went to a jail meeting when I lived in Cincinnati.  This was a bad jail, a big time prison for men who had committed violent felonies and where going to be locked up for a long, long time.  I was scared shitless the first few times I went and scared almost shitless every other time so to compensate I tried to act like a bad-ass.  For the record - I am the least bad-ass person you'll ever meet.  My wife - who weighs like 100 pounds - can beat me up so I'm sure I fooled precisely no one who was incarcerated.  The lesson I learned was to be authentic.  It's not hard to get a feel for who I am.  I'm pretty transparent.

My part.  My part.  What is my part?  Your part is none of my business.  But I don't want to look at my part!  Your part is more delicious to dissect.

Isolate: To set apart or cut off from others.

Solitude:  The state of being by oneself.

Solitude versus isolation.  One is okay and one is not.  You can figure it out on your own.

Living sober means being uncomfortable sometimes.  Or: The good thing about being sober is that you get to feel things again but the bad thing about being sober is you have to feel things again.

I have a good complicator.

Regret nothing.

A.A. is a little play world where we can practice being adults.  I did not know what I was doing when I got sober so I practiced on some patient A.A.s.

Our Sole Purpose :)

I really like this idea that suffering makes us human.  Going through difficulties and transcending them, either by taking the action to change the situation or learning to accept the circumstances as they are, to the best of our ability, fits us to be of service to other people.  My first sponsor in Indianapolis - a kind, generous, spiritual man who helped me immensely - drove a big, white Cadillac.  I found myself discounting his advice on the sole basis of this car.  This was unreasonable but understandable - I couldn't always see how he could identify with my much more ordinary life.  I had other ne'er-do-wells to commiserate with and leaned on him as a man who had worked through The Steps and could give me advice on the best way to do that.  He wasn't my Go To guy when it came to thriving while enduring the trials and travails of a more hard-scrabble existence.

We all remember that sense of belonging that came when talking to someone who had lived through similar life circumstances.  Sometimes my sponsor seemed to be passing along book knowledge and not lived knowledge.  I find I need both.  When I'm talking with an A.A., sharing my problems or listening to theirs, I might suggest different courses of action and I might relate how I behaved in a similar situation and I often refer to specific passages in the books that seem applicable before throwing up my hands, metaphorically, and saying: "Wow, you're taking a lot of good action - you're really going to be able to help someone some day."

I say again: Your sole purpose in life may be to serve as a warning for others.

The Non-Arbiter

Arbiter:  A person appointed, or chosen, by parties to determine a controversy between them.

I'm no arbiter of anyone's personal decisions.

Jesus Nut: The assembly that holds the propeller to the body of a helicopter as coined by pilots during the Vietnam War.  Because if the Jesus Nut was damaged all you could really do is scream "Jesus!"

I was the meeting leader this morning so I chose to read the appendix in The Big Book called The Spiritual Experience.  It does such a great job of explaining that the linchpin, the cornerstone, the Jesus nut, of The Fellowship is finding a Higher Power while making sure we understand that this is about personal spirituality, that we don't follow any organized dogma or religion.

Remember!

Remember: That light at the end of the tunnel might be the locomotive steaming right at you.

"We need to accept the difficulties and disciplines of life so as to fully share the common life of other people.  Many things that we must accept in life are not to be taken so much as being necessary for us personally, as to be experienced in order that we may share in the suffering and problems of humanity.  We need sympathy and understanding.  We must share many of the experiences of life, in order to understand and sympathize with others.  Unless we have been through the same experiences, we cannot understand other people or their makeup well enough to be able to help them."

Remember: Your sole purpose in life may be to serve as a warning for others.

Ah, nuts to that.  I hate the idea that going through painful or difficult circumstances is in my best interest because it is fitting me to be of maximum service to others which is - after all - the whole idea behind a life of service.  My first sponsor drove this great big Cadillac while I was trying to start a Plymouth Belvedere station wagon that my grandpa gave me.

"It has been proved in countless lives that for every day I live, the necessary power shall be given me.  I must face each challenge that comes to me during the day, sure that God will give me the strength to face it.  For every task that is given me, there is also given me all the power necessary for the performance of that task."

Remember: It's always darkest right before it goes totally black.

Pause When Agitated

"What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline.  With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves.  Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves the essence of spiritual experience.  Some of us call it God consciousness.  In any case, willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery."

The guy who chaired the meeting today is one of my favorite A.A. guys.  I was around when he came in about four years ago.  He sat on the filthy couches in the corner of the room with the street people.  He had a big bandage covering a noticeable cut on his forehead.  He did not have it all going on.  But I was encouraged when I spoke to him after the meeting because I could sense he was all in.  When I walk away from a newcomer my thoughts are often along the lines of "I don't think this guy gets what we're trying to do in here."  People want to get sober but they don't want to do the work.  They throw up a barrage of excuses.  I believe if I had told Frank that he needed to go outside, stand on one foot, and quack like a duck he would have done it.

Part of the meeting revolved around the phrase "As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show."  This helpful thought is especially helpful when paired with the idea that "Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen.  We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven argument.  The same goes for sulking or silent scorn. These are emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengefulness."  Look before you leap.  Think before you speak.

Another part of the meeting was a discussion of the words "we" and "us."  It's important for me to remember that if I try to go it alone then I'm shit out of luck.  This is why I'm constantly checking in with other alcoholics.  I'm not always nuts but when I am I don't always know it.

Definitions

Work: Sustained human effort to overcome obstacles and achieve a result.

The format for our Monday meeting is to read a paragraph out of The Big Book and use the reading as a basis for discussion.  Today the guy read the shortest paragraph in the first 164 pages (not verified but there is certainly none shorter): "It works - it really does!"  I find it interesting that the word "works" appears 31 times in the literature with "work" showing up an additional 130 times.  While some of these are in the context of going to a job many of them talk about the effort we have to put into our recovery.  It's work.  It's not leisure which by the way is not used at all . . . in any context . . .  anywhere in our books.

Balance:  Mental equilibrium; mental health; calmness, a state of remaining clear-headed and undisturbed.

The topic included the oh so important A.A. concept of balance, one of my favorite touchstones in my recovery.  I'm not all the way to the left and I'm not all the way to the right and I try to stay in the middle somewhere.  I didn't get sober to hang out in recovery rooms all the time but if I don't hang out in recovery rooms some of the time my mental equilibrium is disturbed.  Everything is no longer simply On and Off.  I can throttle shit up and I can downshift when it seems appropriate.

Isolate: To set apart or cut off from others.

We also dabbled with the idea of living life in our own heads.  If I go up there, in my noggin, I'm all alone in a bad neighborhood.  I need you people.  Even though you can irritate the shit out of me I need you.  I live my life in the real world and not in some dystopian nightmare hallucinated out of my darkness.

Quiet:  With little or no sound; free of disturbing noise; not talking much or not talking loudly.

In Alcoholics Anonymous we should addend this definition to say "or not talking at all."  If someone thinks you're stupid open your mouth and remove all doubt.  The idea is that I rarely make things worse by remaining silent while I often ruin something by talking.  So I keep quiet a lot of the time.  And when I do talk I measure my words carefully because they can have a big effect.  Sometimes, when I'm driven to say something I know I shouldn't say, I'm fascinated hearing to the stupid, inappropriate words coming out of my mouth even while my brain is saying: "This is stupid.  Why are you doing this again?  I told you not to do this and you're doing it anyway.  This is NOT going to work out well for you."

Serve: To be effective; to be useful to; to meet the needs of.

One of my morning Quiet Time affirmations is that I be shown how to be of service to someone.  This effort used to be restricted to alcoholics because that's the only people I was capable of helping.  Today I ask that I be given the strength and wisdom to be helpful to anybody.  We can be nice to everyone we run into.  We can try to make everyone's day better.

Spiritual Experience

"A spiritual experience is something that brings about a personality change.  This personality change is not necessarily in the nature of a sudden and spectacular upheaval.  We do  not need to acquire an immediate and overwhelming God-consciousness, followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook.  In most cases, the change is gradual.  The acquiring of an immediate and overwhelming God-consciousness, resulting in a dramatic transformation, though frequent, is by no means the rule.  Most of our spiritual experiences are of the educational variety, and they develop slowly over a period of time.  Quite often friends of newcomers are aware of the difference long before they are themselves.  They finally realize that they have undergone a profound alteration in their reaction to life and that such a change could hardly have been brought about by themselves alone."

I don't know about the idea that the White Light experience is frequent.  I'm not sure I've ever met anyone in Alcoholics Anonymous who had one.  I was talking to a woman in our community who has three sons with alcohol and drug problems - two in recovery and one living outside in an area of Ventura called the River Bottom which, as you may have guessed, is not a high-end condo development.  She knows I'm in recovery so she just kind of casually mentioned that she once had a White Light experience.  Intrigued, I listened as she described an event almost identical to what happened to Bill W in The Big Book.  It was eerie and I'm not making this up.

I believe that if you have acquired a peace and a contentment that you didn't have when you were drinking then you've had some kind of spiritual experience.  I had one and it was separate from my experience growing up in a conservative, religious household.  I did not have any trouble with the God idea or the suggestion that I declare myself powerless but the God I had wasn't very present or effective in my life.  The way I approached my Higher Power was not giving me the strength to stop drinking but because I had so much experience with this church God - who after all had been important in my life - it took me some time to grow into a working relationship with a working God.

No mumbo-jumbo for me - it has to be practical.

Teeth Collection

"In taking a personal inventory of ourselves, we have to face facts as they really are.  We have to stop running away.  We must face reality.  We must see ourselves as we really are.  We must admit our faults openly and try to correct them.  We do not do this once and forget it.  We do it every day of our lives, as long as we live.  We are never done with checking up on ourselves."

"We were not made so that we could see God.  That would be too easy for us and there would be no merit in obeying Him.  It takes an act of faith.  We are in a box of space and time and we can see neither our souls nor God.  God and the human spirit are both outside the limitations of space and time."

"Faith in God should bring you a deep feeling of happiness and security, no matter what happens on the surface of your life."

"Our demand for emotional security, for our own way, had constantly thrown us into unworkable relations with other people.  Though we were sometimes unconscious of this, the result always had been the same.  Either we had tried to play God and dominate those about us, or we had insisted on being overdependent upon them.  It became clear that if we ever were to feel emotionally secure among grown-up people, we would have to put our lives on a give-and-take basis; we would have to develop the sense of being in partnership or brotherhood with all those around us.  We saw that we would need to give constantly of ourselves without demands for repayment."

I've always liked the inclusion of the word "unconscious" when the book talks about our tendencies.  I'm often an asshole with no self-awareness.  Just because I don't think I'm controlling or judging or suggesting or correcting doesn't mean I'm not doing it.

"We discovered the best possible source of emotional stability to be God Himself."

The idea that there is something out there that is collecting teeth from children blows me away.  What is it constructing with those teeth?  What is its problem?

    My mandate is to love people.  I don't necessarily have to like them although that's nice, too.  And I'm good with that coming right back at me.  It's a great relief to not have to be liked by everyone.  It sure has relieved me of the people pleasing thing.

Courage

I heard this definition again today: "Courage isn't the absence of fear but the ability to continue on in spite of it."  And in conjunction with the belief that "Pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth" we're led inexorably to "One Day at a Time."  The fact for us is that I have all the power and strength I need to meet whatever comes my way today but if I retreat into the past or go future-tripping then I'm on my own.

I try to practice the theory that I don't know what's in my best interest.  I know what I want (more money, more power, more sex) and what I'd like to avoid (pain, discomfort, more pain whether it be of the physical, mental, or emotional variety) but I don't know what's going to be best for me in the long run.  I live in a box of time and space and cannot see what's up ahead.

The Big Book story we read today was about a man at the top of his profession who lost everything but then got it all back.  I enjoy an inspiring story as much as the next person but I'm also careful not to buy into the idea that this is inevitable.  It often happens but sometimes - when we've burned bridges and then bombed the rubble and hired a heavy equipment operator to push the rubble down a mine shaft or into the ocean - we don't get things back.  I was kicked out of a university and they never invited me back to resume my education and I lost that job that meant so much to me and that I was so bad at and didn't really enjoy.  Painful when it was actually happening but everything worked out OK in the long run.  I can see in retrospect that it was the best outcome for me but at the time I screamed in misery.

Beware The Locomotive

 Acceptance:  The act of taking or receiving something offered; the act of assenting or believing.

Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest it.  The concept is close in meaning to acquiescence, derived from the Latin acquiēscere (to find rest in).

I'm glad I dug into this concept a little more thoroughly.  The idea of acceptance as the simple act of receiving something was too vague for my liking but the psychological definition of making peace with some person, place, thing, or situation, especially one that we'd rather not have to deal with, is a lot more enlightening, especially especially when we don't make a fuss about it.  Psychological acceptance is the active embracing of subjective experience, particularly distressing experiences.  The idea is not merely to grudgingly tolerate negative experiences but to embrace them fully and without resistance.

Without.  Defense.  Without.  Attempting to change them.  Without.  Bitching about it ad infinitum.

I was a maintenance drinker.  I didn't go on binges, preferring to drink steadily and consistently.  The drunker I got the more sober I seemed.  I was not having fun.  I was drinking to quiet an obsession and override an allergy.  I'm also an It's Never Enough person.  Whatever it is it's not enough.  There is more that must be had.  I was also also a person who would work tirelessly to achieve some goal and then toss the thing away just when success was at hand.  That's the Insanity of the First Drink.  It isn't the last drink that gets you drunk.  It isn't the caboose that runs you over.

A Good Forgetter

"In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.  Confidence means to have faith in something.  We could not live without confidence in other.  When you have confidence in God's grace, you can face whatever comes.  When you have confidence in God's love, you can be serene and at peace  You can rest in the faith that God will take care of you.  Try to rest in God's presence until His life-power flows through you.  Be still, and in that stillness renew."

Confidence:  The feeling or belief that one can rely on something or someone; firm trust.

I have a good forgetter.

How do we handle our problems with grace?  That's the million dollar question.  How do we step back and look at what we don't like with perspective and patience?  It's easy to concentrate on what we don't like.

"How we alcoholics in A.A. got, or can we get, the resources to meet calamities which come to so many?  These were problems of life which we could never face up to.  Can we now, with the help of God as we understand Him, handle them sas well and as bravely as our non-alcoholic friends often do?  Can we transform these calamities into assets, sources of growth and comfort to ourselves and to those about us?"

Here's what the book says . . . The answer is in still more spiritual development.  When an honest effort is made to "practice these principles in all our affairs" then we do fine, that "when we are willing to place spiritual growth first" do we grow in more mundane matters.

"Dwell for a moment each day in a secret place, the place of communion with God.  apart from the world, and thence receive strength to face the world.  Material things cannot intrude upon this secret place, they cannot ever find it, because it is outside the realm of material things  God is close to you in this quiet place of communion.  Each day, dwell for a while in this secret place."

And here's what The Beatles had to say in 1965.  To be fair I believe Lennon was on LSD when he wrote the lyrics but it is stepping away from what you know and experiencing something elsewhere.

Turn off your mind
Relax and float downstream
It is not dying
It is not dying

Lay down all thoughts
Surrender to the void
It is shining
It is shining

That you may see
The meaning of within
It is being
It is being

That love is all
That love is everyone
It is knowing
It is knowing

That ignorance and hate
May mourn the dead
It is believing
It is believing

But listen to
The colour of your dream
It is not living
It is not living

Compromise

So here's what I've taken away so far . . . 

People are eager to help and share their experience.  I had a buddy tell me once: "Ask a favor - make a friend."  Sort of reminds me of being thanked by a newcomer in Alcoholics Anonymous for listening to some long tale of woe.  I cannot explain how great this makes me feel, how thankful I am that I'm able to focus on something besides myself for a few minutes, how amazing a gift to think that I might be easing the path for someone else be passing on some hard-earned personal experience. 

Older folks are generally pretty happy.  They're certainly more accepting than I am.  I don't think I've talked to anyone that I'd consider miserable or confrontational.  Now, I'm not an idiot - I know there are plenty of older folks who have serious problems that make them miserable, people that I'm less likely to run into on my goings to and fro.  Nobody I talked to has cancer or has lost a limb to diabetes or is blind.  I'm guessing those people wouldn't be so cheery.  There's a fitness class in the pool here at my senior citizen complex and I've never heard so much giggling and carrying on - it sounds like a pool party for prepubescent children - and, trust me, some of the participants don't look to be in fine mettle.

Nobody - Nobody!! - has told me I'm getting out of this pain-free.  Nobody.  They will commiserate.  They help me lessen my load because they have gone through/are going through what I'm experiencing.  Sometimes the best thing I can say to someone is:" I know what you're going through."

They offer solutions.  Try this stretch or change your diet to this or do this exercise.  They don't insist - they suggest.

They stress that the biggest hurdle to overcome is the mental/emotional one.  "It's a state of mind.

Compromise:  Accept standards that are lower than is desirable.

I did talk to my park Jewish mother yesterday who is 84, by the way.  She pretty much let me have it.  She pretty much wasn't interested in my excuses.  I loved it.  I hugged her and told her I loved her.

Seeking Happiness

 Kelii - 60 (a good spiritual Hawaiian friend from The Program).  "Practice detachment.  Do something and especially do something for someone else.  With anxiety if you think about it you'll never find the answer.  The answer comes in self-forgetting which happens when you're focused on someone besides yourself."

Jeff - 72 (a sponsee who is still pretty active).  Jeff and I talked about balance and compromise.  We both agree it's important to stay active . . . to the best of your ability.  Our brains send us messages of pain and fatigue so that we don't injure ourselves.  We should pay attention to those messages.  The question of the day is what exactly does that compromise look like?  He also worked in a technical field where he was tasked to find and solve problems so both of us have a tendency to keep looking for a solution that can be applied to fix something, to bring a system back to prime operating condition.  But sometimes whatever you're working on is so old that it's never again going to be as good as new.

Bruce - 84 (some dude in the park I met today while he was walking his dog.  I decided to ask him about getting older.  I don't really have much of a filter when it comes to talking to strangers, especially if it's someone I don't think I'll see again).  Bruce was just basically optimistic.  He does what he can and doesn't worry about what he can't do.  He didn't appear to have a ton on his schedule today.  He emphasized a good diet and staying active.  He has a set routine each day that he doesn't play tennis.  He was sharp and clear and just a little fat although his dog was friendly and morbidly obese.  He didn't appear to feel sorry for himself at all.  It didn't appear that walking his corpulent dog was going to leave him winded.  I felt like he didn't really understand what I was getting at or - more likely - he was telling me a simple truth with a twinkle in his eye.

Guy - 69 (another pool/hot tub friend).  Guy spent his life doing construction work so he's not in great shape physically, a fact that doesn't seem to bother him all that much.  Of all the people I've talked to so far he would be the one most justified in pitching a bitch about his ailments which are not aches and pains but just pain.  He seems to be used to not feeling well so not feeling well isn't out of the ordinary and consequently not something to focus on.

Nobody here has revealed any aging loopholes or pain avoidance exceptions.  So far.

A couple of quotes from psychology books I read after both my parents died . . . 

"Happiness is not something to go out and seize.  Happiness is taking satisfaction in what is available right now, not hitching it to the future.  Too often our definition of happiness looks forward.  The future is tricky - the future might not come."

"Here's the strategy: spend our time and energy on the things that give us satisfaction, not lamenting those that we could once do - or experience - but now can't.  "Selective optimization with compensation:" make the most of what we have and compensate for what we've lost."

And this from an interview from a man who is classified as old old - 85 and above . . . .

"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.  If you want the next moment where everything will be better, then you’d better do this moment right.  People often asked him if he was happy, he said, and his response was always the same: of course he was.”

I won’t think about what I have to do - I'm just going to do it, hoping that’s what my fate is.  If I have any problems that emerge I'm going to try to leave them alone for now, let time work on it.  I shouldn’t dwell on anything that's problematic - I'm going to try to leave it alone and as time goes along see if it straightens out by itself.  I cannot deal with it, so you, god, now it’s your job.  You work on it and I'll do something else.  And usually they do it.  Trust—that’s what I advise if anyone asks.  You have to trust your higher power.”

Blotting Out My Miserable Existence . . .

Blot:  To remove with absorbing material.

I like it when people use the word "blotting" to describe their drinking.  There's a phrase in the Big Book along the lines of "blotting out our miserable existence to the best of our ability."  People think alcoholics drink alcohol to have fun because that's what normal people do - they want to relax and be social.  Alcoholics simply don't want to feel anything.  Consider the blackout drinker, the person who doesn't remember hours at a time.  Is this fun?  Or is this someone trying to avoid reality of any sort?

Learn the lesson - remember the past but don't shut the door on it.  There is valuable instruction there, remembering the dark, terrible places alcohol took me.  I have a new life today to hold onto and enjoy.

In A.A. we have The Four Hideous Horsemen: Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, and Despair.  There are to be found in the Bible, of course, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Famine, Death, and Pestilence.  I'd rather face the hideous ones, frankly.  Bewilderment?   Frustration?  I think I could take those two down.  The Biblical Horsemen are pretty imposing.

I'm turning 65 this year.  I've been joking about getting old for a long time but I just got my Medicare card in the mail.  They should replace Frustration with a new terror and call it: Medicare.  He wouldn't even get a horse.  He'd get a walker.  The other three would be ravaging some village and they'd go: "Where the fuck is 65?  That dude is useless when we're doing some good terrorizing."  You'd see him slowly laboring over a hill, clutching his left knee and limping noticeably.

I've never passed by a milestone birthday without some suffering in the run-up.  SuperK made the excellent suggestion that I talk to some people who are my age or older and get some feedback on how they did it/are doing it.  Great suggestion.  And I followed it which is unusual for a know-it-all like me.

Three guys yesterday:

Tom R - 73 (filling in for my real sponsor who is still pissing me off by going maskless to a live meeting in defiance of local ordinances).  "This is mostly a state of mind, an attitude."

Barber Dave - 76 (my barber, natch).  "Life is precious and I'm grateful for every day."

Art - 64 (hot tub buddy here at my mobile home park).  "I was a little upset when I hit 21 because I wasn't a millionaire yet.  That's really the only one that bothered me."  Art weighs like 300 lbs.  Art is definitely morbidly obese so he's probably just grateful to be alive.  And he's one of those people who just always seems to be up, positive, cheerful.  Jerks.

Good advice, good sharing, eh wot?  Nobody said you're going to feel fine until you die.  That I did notice.

When I Talk to God I Know He Understands . . .

 "When you call on God in prayer to help you overcome weakness, sorrow, pain, discord, and conflict God never fails in some way to answer the appeal.  When you are in need of strength for yourself or for the help of some other person, call on God in prayer.  The power you need will come simply, naturally, and forcefully.  It will raise the quality of thought and word and bring order out of chaos."

As I go through the angst of physical discomfort - really one of the only things that frightens me at all - I'm struck by how poor a job I do reaching out to my Higher Power when I'm uncertain of the answer or - better yet - I'm afraid that the answer will not be what I want.  I pray every day and I try to pray mindfully, paying attention to the words I'm saying, letting the deeper meaning sink in but when I need some immediate relief the idea of praying for it vanishes like fog in the sun.  I don't want to hear what God has to say when it doesn't coincide with what I want.

"When I talked to God,

I knew He'd understand.

He said: 'Stick by Me,

I'll be your guiding hand.' "

"But don't ask me what I think of you,

I might not give the answer that you want me to."     Fleetwood Mac

Now, granted, the second verse was probably directed to a lover who had jilted the singer rather than the voice of God talking to someone praying but I like the idea of being ready for whatever answer comes.  Personally, I'd rather know.  If my wife is pissed at me I always encourage her to let it rip, a decision I regret sometimes.  I'm going to bend all credulity and say this is what God is saying to me when He's frustrated.  He doesn't yell it or anything but . . . for instance . . . if I act like a jerk around SuperK and she gets mad at me then I shouldn't spend a lot of timing asking her what the problem is.  I know what the problem is.  I don't need to get a clearer answer.  One question is enough.

I Need It, I Want It.

Want: To wish for or desire; to crave or demand.

Need:  To have an absolute requirement for; to be necessary. 

"Outline the program of action to new prospects, explaining how you made a self-appraisal, how you straightened out your past, and why you are now endeavoring to help them.  It is important for them to realize that your attempt to pass this on to them plays a vital part in your own recovery.  The more hopeless they feel the better.  They will be more likely to follow your suggestions."

"Offer new prospects friendship and fellowship.  Tell them that if they want to get well you will do anything to help.  burn the idea into the consciousness of new prospects that they can get well, regardless of anyone else.  Job or no job, spouse or no spouse, they cannot stop drinking as long as they place dependence on other people ahead of dependence on god.  Let no alcoholic say they cannot recover unless they have their family back.  This just isn't so.  Their recovery is not dependent upon other people.  It is dependent on their own relationship with God."

This new guy asked me if we could exchange phone numbers at my last meeting.  He has mentioned - every time we've talked - that at one point he had a year and a half.  I assume this means to him that he's somewhat of an expert on what we're doing in Alcoholics Anonymous.  He said he needed someone to be accountable to, someone to check in with every day.  That evening he sent me a text: "Still sober."  I had to laugh.  He's done it every evening so far and even first thing on a Sunday morning - I just picked up the phone and called him when I got that morning text but it was a short conversation as it was clear he didn't want to get into a long conversation.  This is all fine with me.  Help is providing something someone wants, not what I want to give.  I'm not going to cut him off the next time he brings up the year and a half, either, by pointing out that we all start from scratch when we come back in because whatever we tried the first time obviously didn't work.  That year and a half is apparently important to him and what do I care, anyway?

God kind of works that way.  He gives me what I need and not what I want.  He doesn't check in with me.  He isn't interested in hearing how I think things should go.  It's like watching a long football game where your team is getting beat up - which makes the whole watching experience excruciatingly painful - but then your team stages a big comeback and scores as time runs out to win the game.  Your joy at that moment is bigger and better than if you had just gotten the score on the evening news after the game ended.  I'm always trying to remember that there is a difference between what I want and what I need.  I forget this lesson when I'm not getting what I want.

A Daily Reprieve

 "We especially ask 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."

" 'Thy will (not mine) be done.'  We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish.  It is the proper use of the willpower."

This idea of my will versus the will of my higher power and the proper use of willpower is rife in the A.A. literature.  I confuse what I want a lot with what's good for me or right in the present circumstances.

"Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision.  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."

"It is easy to let up on the spiritual program and rest on our laurels.  We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.  We are not cured of alcoholism.  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."

"In meditation we ask God what we should do about each specific matter.  The right answer will come, if we want it."

One enduring legend in human history is of the Fountain of Youth.  There are mentions of this implausible place in literature dating to the time before Christ.  People actually went out and looked for it, led by the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, who was actually chartered to find the fountain, believed to be on a place called Bimini.  None of his writings ever mentioned it so we can surmise he was too smart to waste a lot of time trying to find such a ridiculous place.

Another one is alchemy - turning a base metal into gold.  This was widely investigated in the scientific community for hundreds of years and the results of the research carefully guarded.  Think of it - if you could turn lead into gold then right quickly you'd have boatloads of gold so it would lose it's value immediately.  It would become worthless.  Still, each society thought if only they could find the answer they'd be able to mine gold and thumb their noses at everyone else.  They would become unimaginably rich.  Only them.

I also am intrigued by how the eventual, inevitable downfall of many powerful societies has come about because they overextended their reach.  You'd think that once you controlled half the world - like Spain once did and the Romans and the mighty English - that you'd be satisfied.  If Germany had left Russia alone in WWII then they might still be in control of all of Western Europe.  But no . . . always reaching for more, more, more.  It reminds me of a billionaire bitching about taxes.  It's clearly not about the money - it's about the status.  Clearly no one can spend five billion dollars.  They want to get to ten billion because there's some billionaire in Texas who has seven.  I think most of us believe that once we had an unimaginably large fortune that we'd just start giving it away.  I bet most of us wouldn't.  I bet I wouldn't be satisfied with one Ferrari - I'd want a whole garage full of Ferraris.  I'd build a dedicated structure to house all of my Ferraris.  My desire to help the less fortunate would go right out the window.

These thoughts came up after I wrote down the italicized quotes from The Big Book and the 12&12 - passages I used when I led a meeting a few days ago.  It makes me ponder how much of my motivation is to get what I want and avoid what is painful.  I think that's very human but not very spiritual.

" . . . a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition . . . "

Boy, it doesn't get any clearer than that.