Pitiful and Incomprehensible Demoralization

"You cannot see the future.  It's a blessing that you cannot.  You could not bear to know all the future.  That is why God only reveals it to you day by day."

Future:  The time ahead; those moments yet to be experienced.

Past:  The period of time that has already happened.

I've always liked the use of the word "cannot."  Doesn't it sound a lot weightier than "can't?"  "You canNOT believe that I'm interested in what you're talking about."  It has a commanding tone.  I also like adding "at all" to my sentences.  It is also weighty.  "You do not interest me AT ALL."  See the power there?  There's no chance that you can misinterpret my intentions when I tack that "at all" onto the end of the sentence.

I think I could handle the future.  I think God is making a mistake by not allowing me to see the future.  I think God is making a big mistake by not letting me control the future.

I don't get to change the past.  I can clean up my mistakes.  I can learn from them but I can't rewrite what has happened as much as I'd like to do that from time to time.  Similarly, the future is out of my hands as much as this galls my gallbladder.  Honestly, the past is overrated.  It has been done to death.

"Your attitude toward your problems can be changed by putting yourself and your problems in God's hands and trusting him to to see that everything will turn out all right, provided you are trying to do the right thing."

Another overrated thing?  Trying to do the right thing.  Overrated.  My attitude toward my problems is just fine.

The good news is that there's a solution - the bad news is that it's us.

Demoralize:  To destroy the morale of; to dishearten.

A great line from our literature is "pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization."

Funny how service goes from being a huge, huge thing to becoming a small, simple thing.  Don't be an asshole.  Think of someone else.  Be nice.  My expectations of the world have gotten smaller and smaller as I've stayed sober.

A Proper Time

 Change of thinking . . . 

"There is a proper time for everything.  I must learn not to do things at the wrong time, that is, before I am ready or before conditions are right.  It is always a temptation to do something at once, instead of waiting until the proper time.  Timing is important.  I must learn, in the little daily situations of life, to delay action until I am sure that I am doing the right thing at the right time.  So many lives lack balance and timing.  In the momentous decisions and crises of life, they may ask God's guidance, but into the small situations of life, they rush alone."

I prefer rushing ahead.  I don't mind rushing ahead alone, either, in those many, many situations where everyone else is too stupid to see how right I am.  If I think it - so it must be.  My initial impression is the correct one.  It's always the right one.  

"We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us."

Wait?  Dammit, I want to kill something. (Two vultures, sitting in a tree, discussing patience.)

Ready!  Fire!!  Aim!!!

Existential Seaweed

 "My mind is in a box of space and time and it is so made that I cannot conceive of what is beyond space or time, the limitless and the eternal.  But I know that there must be something beyond space and time, and that something must be the limitless and eternal Power behind the universe."

For a transparently Christian-inspired morning meditation book some of the daily musings take on a surprisingly existential tone.  These flights of whimsy may be its saving grace for me, now that I think about it.  I'm really digging on this idea that a characteristic of my humanity, my humanness, is that my mind is limited in its ability to think about some matters.  It's impossible to comprehend infinity.  It's virtually impossible to understand how far across the universe is and the speed at which it continues to expand.  I'm going to resist the concept of a Higher Power?

Here's this then:

One million seconds is about 13 days.

One billion seconds is about 32 years.

One trillion seconds about 32,000 years.

One trillion dollars laid out end to end would nearly reach the sun.

It would take a jet flying at the speed of sound 14 years to unspool a roll of one trillion dollar bills.

Yet, we throw these numbers around in our daily life and don't think a thing of it.  But when it comes to the help we can receive from a more powerful force we get all agitated, dig our heels in, and refuse to budge.  I can't really understand what a trillion means and I'm going to insist that I comprehend God?  On its surface this is patently ridiculous.  And if you dig down deeper it's even more ridiculous.

When I hear people share their experiences with their own personal Jesus (Johnny Cash - lookitup) I tend to roll my eyes before I catch myself.  Who knows what's going on?  Who knows how you or me or you relate to something ineffable?  I perceived that my dead mother was communicating with me through some doves.  Willie saw his father's spirit lift out of his body when he passed.  People hear actual voices from beyond the grave.  

The scientist in me scoffs, demanding proof - the recovering alcoholic in me nods in wonder.

Piqued

"We suffer from mental conflicts from which we look for escape by drowning our problems in drink.  We try through drink to push away from the realities of life.  But alcohol does not feed, alcohol does not build, it only borrows from the future and it ultimately destroys.  We try to drown our feelings in order to escape life's realities."

"Our liquor was but a symptom.  So we had to get down to causes and conditions."  Big Book P. 64.

For the longest time I labored through the delusion that I drank to have fun.  While sometimes, especially in the early years, I did indeed have fun, I was really drinking because I was poorly suited to manage my life.  I had no interest in learning anything through pain or fear or embarrassment which are . . . you know . . . the normal ways we learn new lessons.  I just wanted the anxiety to go away.  I vaguely sensed I was being none too smart but I always managed to jam those feelings way down deep where the sun don't shine.

"I vaguely sensed I was not being any too smart, but felt reassured as I was taking the whiskey on a full stomach. The experiment went so well that I ordered another whiskey and poured it into more milk. That didn't seem to bother me so I tried another."

Pique:  A feeling of irritation or resentment, awakened by a social slight or injury; offence, especially taken in an emotional sense with little thought or consideration. (Ed. Note: This word is taken from Old French where it means a prick or a sting or a sharp point.)

"I must never let personal piques interfere with living the way I know God wants me to live."

Out of Sorts

 I'm out of sorts today.

Out of sorts means feeling irritable, upset or unwell.  Most commonly, the origin of the term out of sorts is attributed to typesetting.  As this theory goes, the phrase refers to the individual metal type called sorts that printers used. These sorts would be stored in their individual compartments.  If the sorts were in short supply or stored in the wrong compartments, then the printer was out of sorts.  However, the term out of sorts was recorded long before the printing press and today all type setting is done digitally, eliminating the need for physical type.

Ah, I got nothing.

Upsetting Things

"When you allow yourself to be upset over one thing, you succeed only in opening the door for the coming of hundreds of other upsetting things."

Ah, I hate that door.  Here in SoCal we have ants.  Little, tiny, thirsty ants.  If you leave a speck of food on the kitchen counter an ant will find it and then she will rush back to the nest yelling "Food!  Food!" while laying down a chemical trail so that the other trillion ants in the nest know exactly where to go.  (Ed. Note: Did you know that the foraging ants are always female?  As in most societies the males are pretty much useless.)  And lest you think that removing the food particle solves the problem I'm here to inform you that the chemical trail goes exactly nowhere so that ants will periodically show up on your counter top, weeks later, cruising aimlessly around like drunken sailors, looking for that spec of food long-gone, so that if you leave anything new around they'll inevitably stumble into that.

The moral is don't get started with the one upsetting thing.

A guy I sponsor made plans to attend the Keep It Complicated group this morning and asked if I was going to be there.  Sure.  Why not?  I'm really not mad at anyone - I'm just one of those people if I don't like a restaurant after I've eaten there I go somewhere else.  I don't call the manager - I don't write a venomous review on Yelp - I don't send the meal back.  I vote with my feet.

Continuing with the "things solve themselves without my input" riff I was tickled to see that the continuing problem with the church's internet connection was still a continuing problem so no screen for me again.  This time the screen addicts didn't even drag the screen out and fuck with it for an hour.  Simply had a good, old fashioned in person meeting.  Good energy, good flow, good, good vibrations.  I was also amused to see an attendance of about 20.  This is about half of the pre-CoVid attendance of 40 to 50 but it's a nice size - it's easy to share if you want to but it's OK if you'd like to listen for a day.

All without me pushing buttons and twisting knobs and adjusting dampers.

Problems Solve Themselves

"Intelligent faith in that Power greater than ourselves . . . has an incomparable capacity to help us look at life in balanced perspective.  We look up, around, and away from ourselves, and we see that nine out of ten things which at the moment upset us will shortly disappear.  Problems solve themselves, criticism, and unkindness vanish as though they had never been."

I've enjoyed this mental trick over the years - imagining myself drifting up and over my body and looking down at myself as sort of a disembodied spirit, watching what I'm doing and trying to imagine me in relation to the whole, wide world.  I often feel like my head is trapped in this tightly fitting box that has no openings to the outside and is covered with mirrors on the inside.  I can't hear or see anyone else and everywhere I look there I am.  I look up and there I am and I look to the side and there I am and I look down and there I am.  Me, me, me.

Fear:  A strong, uncontrollable, unpleasant emotion that caused by actual or perceived danger or threat.  (Ed. Note: I like the inclusion of perceived in the definition - it reminds me that sometimes I'm afraid because I'm telling myself scary stories.)

Faith: The process of forming or understanding abstractions, ideas, or beliefs, without empirical evidence, experience, or observation.

Some topics that came up in the meeting today: Fear versus Faith.  It's reassuring to have other alcoholics remind me that faith often defeats fear but it's never going to banish it.  I dislike it when someone opines that any fear is a sign of a weak faith.  That's bullshit.  Life is tough and scary and we're all going to be afraid.

CoVid changing the world.

Charming Seaweed

Charming:  (Of a person): polite, friendly, and likable. 

"Live for some purpose greater than yourself.  Each day you will have something to work for.  You have received so much from The Program that you should have a vision that gives your life a direction and a purpose that gives meaning to each new day.  Let us not slide along through life.  Let us have a purpose for each day and let us make that purpose for something greater than just ourselves."

First of all, I'd like to dispute the notion that there is something greater than myself.  This is illogical.  I will concur that I have received so much from The Program.  This is indisputable.  I've received almost everything of worth in my life because I've chose to walk - however haltingly and stumblingly - on a spiritual path.  This has indeed given me a direction and a purpose to my life even when I find myself pointed in the wrong direction.

This idea of not sliding through life is an interesting one, too.  One of my quick Quiet Time affirmations is that I'm shown how I can be of service to one other person today.  Few and far in-between are the days when my Higher Power doesn't place someone in my path.  Often it's a simple, brief interaction.  Long ago I quit looking for the big splash.  The big splashes are few and far in-between.

To wit: SuperK and I were at our coffee shop recently when we offered one of the chairs at our table to a woman who was expecting a number of friends.  She thanked us politely and took the chair.  As she was carrying it to her table I quipped: "I'm not going to help you move the chair or anything, but you can have it."  She told me she had three sons so she wasn't surprised by this.  As we left I leaned over her shoulder, interrupting the conversation at her table, and said: "I'm sorry - are you using this chair?" . . . indicating the chair she was sitting in.  I flatter myself that I have a goofy charm that allows me to get away with this kind of banter - I think people like to be surprised or taken aback at something an adult would say in polite society.  

The point, anyway, is that this was attempt to put a smile on a stranger's face, maybe to make their day a sliver more interesting.  At one of my other favorite coffee shops there's a kid there who can't be out of his early 20s.  I acquired his name which I subsequently used each time I saw him - big, that, greeting an employee by name - and learned a few things about him with which I could start brief conversations if he has a lull in business.  Now I notice he comes over and seems eager to talk to me for a while - he asks questions about me but most of the time he's responding to my questions.  It occurred to me that as an adult - a deadly cool adult with my little pork pie cap and vestigial pony-tail - a young kid, deciding on a major, looking at an uncertain future, might want to hear what I think about things.  I know young people look askance at old people a lot of the time but not all of the time.  When I was a kid I'd occasionally listen to one of the stupid old people who populated my world.

It's a brief but incredibly satisfying interaction for me.

Boredom, Disillusionment, and Gossip

Circumstances:  A fact; an event; a particular incident.

"It is not your circumstances that need altering so much as yourself.  After you have changed, conditions will naturally change.  Take each day with no backward look.  Face the day's problems with God and seek God's help and guidance as to what you should do in every situation that may arise.  Never look back.  Never leave until tomorrow the thing that you are guided to do today."

I don't know about this.  My life would go along more smoothly if I could alter things I don't like so that I then liked them.  Magically alter them.  That sounds a lot easier than doing the work to change myself.  Why can't you see what I want and change to accommodate me?  Much easier and a lot more convenient.

I like the emphasis on looking forward.  I don't think the intent here is to ignore the past completely - we need to clean up our messes and learn from our mistakes - but life is an ongoing concern.  I need to handle what needs to be handled.

My stance on seeking God's stance instead of relying on my brilliance is firmly established.  God should be seeking MY advice instead of the other way around.

Gossip:  Idle talk about someone's private or personal matters, especially someone not present.

Disillusionment:  A feeling of disappointment, akin to depression, arising from the realization that something is not what it was expected or believed to be, possibly accompanied by philosophical angst from having one's beliefs challenged.  (Ed. Note: Philosophical Angst would be an excellent name for a prog-rock band from the '70s.)

Boredom:  Mildly annoyed and restless through having nothing to do.

"Fellowship is wonderful, but its wonder lasts just so long.  Then some gossip, disillusionment, and boredom may come in."

I like making the distinction between The Fellowship and The Program.   The former has been critical to me over the years - the meetings and lunches and coffees and phone calls and the meetings before the meeting and after the meeting - but the rubber hits the road when I put my energy into working the Twelve Steps and growing my spiritual life.  I can get along for prescribed periods of time without The Fellowship but I can't get along without The Program.  This is a fact in my life learned through hard and painful experience.  There have been periods where I was very active in The Fellowship while ignoring the Steps and spiritual stuff.  I get this - it's usually easier to show up at a meeting than it is to make an amend or to change some disgusting, harmful behavior.

You know how some rock stars have nicknames like Bono or Prince?  The three guys in my band will be Boredom, Disillusionment, and Gossip.  Or maybe I'll be all three of them.

Complaining Seaweed

Complain:  To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment

The point yesterday, as I recall, before I was distracted by some small, bright, shiny object off in my peripheral vision, was meant to be another meditation on change.  What a common theme for me!  What a common theme for most of my fellows in Alcoholics Anonymous.  It is obviously a part of the human condition full of angst.  

I remember a good friend of mine - a wry, understated Canadian - quipping - after we were shot down on a couple of proposals to do some things differently at the morning meeting: "I guess the point is never change anything."  I laughed then and it still makes me laugh today.

I remember the response I got from some of the hoary heads in Chicago when I returned for a funeral and complained too much about how they weren't "doing it right in Cincinnati."  "How many meetings do they have?  750?  Sounds like they're doing just fine without your input.  Why don't you go back home and try to be of service."  It wasn't as nice as that but you get the drift.

I believe what I do generally is complain about things I don't like and then complain when they change.  I remark on my tendency to complain about how A.A. meetings are structured in whatever new city I've recently moved to - holding up as an example how great they were in the place I just left - until I move on again, at which point the place I complained bitterly about upon my arrival is now the gold standard for The Program in the new place.   You can't please me, obviously.

There is a pattern in my quest for acceptance.  I mourn the old - trying to hang onto what's familiar for as long as possible - and I resist the new - comparing it unfavorably to what I'm losing and it doesn't matter if it's better, either.

I'll get there.  I'll get there despite all the bitching and fighting and scratching and biting.

One, Two, Three

 "Seek God early in the day, before He gets crowded out by life's problems, difficulties, or pleasures.  In the early quiet time gain a calm, strong confidence in the goodness and purpose in the universe.  Do not seek God only when the world's struggles prove too much and too many for you to bear or face alone."

Inertia:  The property of a body that resists any change to its uniform motion; in a person, unwillingness to take action.

One of the aspects of my life that is a constant source of personal amazement/amusement is my love/hate affair with change.  I don't even have to look the word up anymore: when a thing becomes another thing.  It was one thing and now it's not that thing anymore - it's a different thing.  Like most people change can make me fearful.  Even when the situation is unpleasant or painful or even really awfully painful my tendency is to hang in there.  I'm comfortable with how things are and I usually believe that if I change them that things will get worse.  Maybe this is human nature.

An alcoholic doesn't merely get stuck in a rut - he furnishes the thing, takes out a second mortgage and begins to make it earthquake proof.

If you push a cart it will move forward, with only friction and gravity to slow it down.  On a smooth surface it will roll for a long, long time.

I had three contacts with people from my old meeting yesterday.  One was a response from a woman who blithely acts as if everything is fine - my note was only meant to reassure her that I wasn't angry with her personally, just with the circumstances.  She was clueless.  She bulldozed ahead with her certainty that her way of doing things is the right way and I'll be happy if she gets on board.

Two was to return a call from my sponsor who I've been avoiding because he's a breakaway meeting attendee and I just don't want to have anything whatsoever to do with those people.  I tried to clearly but kindly explain why I thought what they did during the CoVid surge was a bad representation of Alcoholics Anonymous and that, by default, included him.  He was very understanding of my opinions while admitting no fault of his own or willingness to change.  This is as it should be - I didn't bring up the topic because I wanted or expected him to change - I brought it up because I thought he should know why he wasn't getting calls from me anymore.  

Number Three - and this is the priceless one - occurred when I ran into one of the major assholes who led the breakaway group down the road to perdition, under the transparently false guise of concern for the newcomer.  Even when he was attending Zoom meetings he sprinkled in anti-mask, anti-CoVid, anti-government inferences every time he spoke.  He wasn't fooling anyone and he wasn't trying to.  His first words - 18 months after the last time we saw each other at a grocery store - was: "So, you're still wearing a mask?"  (The state has lifted all mask mandates so this isn't a totally unreasonable question.)  Sometimes I think the anti-maskers equate wearing a mask for 15 minutes in a store as the equivalent of having your back broken on the rack.

I gave a mild, non-committal response: "I have two genetic blood clotting disorders" which is technically true but not why I was wearing a mask.   Fuck him, right?  He isn't worth getting into an argument with.  I have had some time to reflect on this.  I believe that in the future - if I prefer a snarky response - I'm going to go with: "Man, your powers of observation are amazing!" and if I want a more anodyne comment to say:" Why do you ask?  What's it to you?"

The first two were expected responses to leading comments - I wanted to make sure these two very important people understood that I wasn't mad at them personally and to give them an insight as to why I'm behaving the way I am.  Their responses were expected.  The asshole guy (who is sober 35 years after not going to meetings for 20 years which to my thinking gives him 15 years of time and not the 35 he so loves to trot out) . . . well, I guess I should have expected that as well.

A rough orbital re-entry continues.

Pausing and Waiting, Oh, My

"In meditation we ask God what we should do about each specific matter.  The right answer will come if we wait for it."  Big Book P. 70.

Wait:  To delay movement or action; to remain in readiness.  (Ah, bullshit.)

"As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action."  Big Book P. 87.

Pause:  To interrupt an activity and wait.  (Ah, there's the fucking waiting again.  Pause is just another word for waiting.  I'm being tricked into waiting again.)

"At no time had we asked what God's will was for us; instead we had been telling Him what it ought to be."  12&12 P. 29.

This makes sense to me: the telling God how things should be, that is.  I'm still hoping that one birthday I get a Bat Phone that rings right into God's bedroom so I can tell Him how the day should go.  The idiot, what does he know, anyway?

"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."  Big Book P. 86.

Relax:  To calm down.

Struggle: Strife; contention; great effort; a contortion of the body in an attempt to escape or to perform a difficult task.

Really, the answers to most of my problems are found in the literature.  These aren't complicated solutions: relaxing, waiting, listening, pausing, answers to my questions surfacing if I quit struggling.

Unvarnished Truth

 I like the phrase "Design for Living."  Alcoholics Anonymous has given me a Design for Living.  I wouldn't have stuck around for very long unless there was a practical application clearly spelled out to help me try to corral my messed-up life.

I like the easy terms we're given for developing a relationship with a Higher Power.  There are some examples in the literature of people having the so-called White Light experience, where God consciousness arrives in the form of a sudden realization, but most of us come to have an awakening of the "educational variety."

Early on in my sobriety I was often asked: "How are things going for you right now?  Not good?  Then maybe you should try something else for a change."  I had no snappy comeback to that line.

My problems, I think, are mostly of my own making.  My current nom de plume when I'm on a Zoom Meeting is "Swims Against the Current Steve."  I'm often the guy who walks up to the river, sees a lovely vista downstream and raging whitewater upstream, and starts swimming against the current.  Sanctimonious Steve and Self-Righteous Steve were also fan favorites.

I like the fact that I have a ton of long-term friends.  These guys are not afraid that they're going to hurt my feelings.  It doesn't happen often but sometimes I get the unvarnished truth when, honestly, I would have preferred some varnish. 

The First Tradition

Unity: A condition of harmony or accord.

"Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on A.A. unity."  Tradition One (Ed. Note: One, the first number, the number that kicks things off, leading one to believe that it's an important concept.)

"The A.A. member . . . learns that the clamor of desires and ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group.  It becomes plain that the group must survive or the individual will not.  At the outset, how best to live and work together as groups became the prime question.  In the world about us we saw personalities destroying whole peoples.  If strong people were stalemated in the search for peace and harmony, what was to become of our erratic band of alcoholics?"  12&12 P. 130.

One of my A.A. friends - who shall remain nameless because he takes far too much childish pleasure in seeing his name in this inconsequential blog - suggested yesterday that I dig a little deeper and analyze what's really going on with my Keep It Complicated fury and how I can channel this emotional energy in a positive direction.  Part of this fury is connected to my belief that - for the first time in my A.A. career - politics and social issues are intruding in the rooms.  While people aren't generally talking about controversial matters directly and openly there are other ways to make their beliefs known without vocalizing them.  Wearing a mask or not wearing one, for instance.  The break-away group is populated with people who are conservative and mask wearing has been spotty at best.  To me this is a statement.  Nobody has to say: "I think masks are bullshit."  The fact that they're not wearing them in defiance of several laws (at the time) spoke loud and clear.  What would any of us have done as newcomers if we walked into our first meeting and everyone was wearing a cap supporting whichever candidate you found offensive?  Gets dicey right quick.

And off I go on a rant . . .  See how easy it is?  I think Willie's point was that I should try to figure out how I can contribute to group unity instead of hardening my position and furthering any fractures.  A.A. has been through a few wars and the massive social upheaval of the '60s and a huge Communism scare and god knows how many other upsets and yet it still thrives today.  For me, at this moment, the breakaway assholes are frustrating me and I'm the asshole frustrating the people who have remained.  I don't feel like I'm adding much of benefit to either group . . . thus my low-key approach to meeting attendance at the moment.  I'm being careful to stay very connected to my recovery just not at too many meetings right now.

And here's the flip side . . . .  what is my responsibility as a dude with long-term sobriety? My belief is that my experience over the years has given me the status to speak up in situations that might be daunting for a newer person or one more timid and less confident.   Willie likes to tell the story of an old-timer poking him in the chest once and saying: "You know what good A.A. is - and when you see something that isn't good A.A. you have a responsibility to speak up." 

 Frankly, the anecdote sounds made up but it's so good I have to repeat it.

Drama King

Drama:  Rumor, lying or exaggerated reaction to life events: melodrama; a situation made more complicated or worse than it should be; intrigue or spiteful interpersonal maneuvering. 

This will be my last Keep It Complicated post.  Maybe.  For a while.  Until I feel like flogging the dead horse a little longer.  Little bit.  Little bit.

I have brought this topic up with my Go To guys for a long time.  My Go To guys are mostly patient with me - they ask a lot of good, probing questions, aware that I've been flogging for so long that I've got a pretty good idea why I'm upset and they're not going to be able to shed any light on a subject that I've inspected under flood lights.  Namely: that I'm an idiot.  At the end, to a man, a variation of this comment arises: "Maybe it's time to let that meeting go."

Uh, you think so?  Jesus, Mother, and Mary.  SuperK and I were reminiscing about whether in our 70 years of combined meeting attendance - encompassing dozens of different meetings of all colors and stripes in five different states - we had ever been involved with a group that got so contentious that some of the members broke away and started what is obviously a competitive meeting.  I get the old "resentment and a coffee pot" saw about how A.A. spreads - I know it happens but neither of us has ever been involved with a group that fractured . . . and here I am in a group where it has happened twice in five years.

Maybe it's time to let that meeting go.  Maybe it was time to let that meeting go after the first time.

Voting With My Feet

I'm in the throes of a bit of a meeting hiatus right now.  I have never done this in my 35 years of A.A. attendance except for the occasional stay in countries where A.A is sporadic or non-existent.  I'm not disconnecting from my recovery but I'm staying away from meetings.  I'm tired of Zoom (and this from a dude who embraced electronic meetings immediately and has attended hundreds of them); I'm not at all interested in hybrid meetings where the live portion is overwhelmed by the Big TV Screen with all of the people exercising and walking and driving and eating and riding their bikes and logging in and out and killing their video so that the screen reshuffles, all of this sucking the energy out of the room which is where the people who have actually taken the time to get up and get dressed and drive to the meeting are sitting: and I cannot yet abide the folks who ignored laws and regulations and the pleas of health care workers not to gather in large groups inside during the various CoVid surges.  It hasn't yet been a long hiatus and it certainly isn't a permanent hiatus but it's a hiatus nonetheless.  And it has been quite freeing and relaxing.  I'm enjoying it.  It has been peaceful.  The meetings were making me feel worse.

I took a call yesterday from a Program woman who I like well enough.  She's not a coffee friend but she's a friend.  A few weeks ago I made an announcement in the Keep It Complicated meeting that I was going to suggest at our next business meeting that we end the hybrid experience.  Well, sir, I really pissed some people off.  One member told me - across the room, in the meeting itself, in a textbook example of cross-talk -  that I was supposed to wait until the business meeting to bring up any topics for discussion in the business meeting which frankly sounds stupid to me.  I thought I could talk about any alcohol related topic I wanted to during an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and I'm frankly unaware of any list that details what I can and cannot say about an upcoming business meeting.  The woman who called me - in her credit wondering if she needed to make an amends - had declined to share when she was called on at this particular meeting, stating that she was so angry she couldn't even talk.  Frankly, I had no idea she was mad at me which made her offer of an amends perplexing.  Normally I have a clue that I've pissed someone off and I'm still frankly confused as to why this announcement was so offensive.  I just thought it might be helpful - since I knew I was going to be making a somewhat controversial proposal - to let people know what was coming so they compose their thoughts.

I frankly didn't want to talk to this woman, who is sort of a repressed weirdo, in my opinion.  I did call, because it was the right thing to do, and we had a short talk.  I assured her I took no offense and that I understood the next few months were going to be confusing and will probably contain some more surprises that we can't even foresee at the moment.  I did note, with some amusement, that she managed to sneak into the conversation - again - the reasons why I shouldn't have done what I did and why everything was going to work out the way I want them to work out if I just wouldn't force the issue, something that she can't predict and that I frankly don't agree with.

This is why I'm not attending meetings right now.  Everyone is irritated and confrontational and I don't want to suck on that negative energy.  I was downtown yesterday, having a coffee at my favorite one-off coffee shop, after a walk on the beach, in perfect SoCal weather, and I stopped into this great guitar store owned by one of my best A.A. friends.  I hung out with him for an hour.  We talked about business and politics and recovery and I had a great ol' time.  It was very spiritual.  I felt like a million bucks when I left - it wasn't a meeting but it provided for me what a good meeting does.  I was enjoying myself so much that I actually blew off a regular Zoom meeting I attend to linger and chat.  I would have preferred avoiding the aggravation of having to talk to someone who had acted pretty pissy and continued being pissy even though the pretext of the call was to apologize for being pissy.  It seemed to me in retrospect to be a bit of a veiled excuse to tell me - again - why I was wrong.

Again, this is not an existential crisis - this is a temporary, statistical aberration. I shall be back and I shall be bam booming.  As my temporary sponsor in SoCal says all the time: "I need Alcoholics Anonymous a lot more than Alcoholics Anonymous needs me."

The World Wonders

 "The world wonders when it sees a person who can unexpectedly draw large and unsuspected sums from the bank for some emergency.  But what the world has not seen are the countless small sums paid into that bank, earned by faithful work over a long time.  And so is the bank of the spirit.  The world sees the person of faith make a demand of God's stores of power and the demand is met.  The world does not see what that person has been putting in, in thanks and praise, in prayer and communion, in small good deeds done faithfully, steadily over the years."

I wondered a bit during my Quiet Time this morning, as I was dutifully repeating my small list of affirmations and prayers, what the benefit was.  I have been trying to pay attention to what I'm saying.  Often with daily affirmations I find myself saying the words and not really digging into the meaning.  My gratitude list, for example.  But I've come to believe that repeating these things day in and day out makes me more grateful.  I'm not sure how it works but - even when I'm barely paying attention to what I'm saying - I believe it makes me more grateful.

Fake it 'till you make it.

I continue to wonder about how things will shake out as most of us re-emerge from a year plus of life underground.  I bet that it's going to look a lot different from here on out.  Talk about change - life ground to a screeching halt 15 months ago and now it's starting up again, fitfully and with some growing pains.  It's going to be interesting.   I'm wondering about that not insignificant group of people who hated the change and fought it tooth and nail from the git-go.  Frankly, I'm looking at these folks with a jaundiced eye.  I understand the attraction at keeping everything exactly the way it has always been - it's comforting when things don't change and it's comforting to be in control.  But now?  Meh, I'm not too impressed with many of them and I'm struggling with how to deal with them going forward.  I have tried disengaging from some of my regular routines because the thought of running into some of these folks is just too painful.  When I do I feel as if I'm walking on eggshells, afraid that something about masks or vaccines or the government is going to come up and it's not always that I disagree with them or at least that I can understand where they're coming from but that I simply don't want to have these conversations: they feel confrontational, simmering.  Pre-CoVid members of Alcoholics Anonymous were pretty good at keeping this information to themselves - there were plenty of people who I suspected looked at social, moral, and religious matters differently than me and sometimes in ways that I found offensive but we kept this stuff on the shelf  - but now?  Dunno.  I've always believed that one of our great strengths has been the intermingling of so many different worldviews.  I have had plenty of friends who would have been on the other side of the protest barriers and I'm not sure now I'm going to be able to interact with them in the future.

I find this pretty tragic.  I hope I'm wrong.

Catapulting and Rocketing

 "No matter how long we have been sober, if we try liquor again, we're as bad or worse than we ever were.  There is no exception to this rule in the whole history of A.A.."

This is one of those facts of Twelve Step recovery that I've always had a hard time getting my mind around so I don't think about the particulars very often.  I acknowledge that it's true - I've seen far too many examples to doubt it - but in a tiny, dark corner of my mind I still hang onto the feeling that if I drank again all of my time and all of the work I've put in would somehow stand me in good stead.  I don't dwell on this, of course, banishing it immediately, because it's such total bullshit.

"Your whole character changes as you reach upward for the things of the spirit - for beauty, for love, for honesty, for purity, and for unselfishness.  We often choose the way of life that best suits the body, not the way that best suits the soul.  I am in a box of space and time and cannot see spacelessness or eternity.  But God is not within the shell of time and space.  He is timeless and spaceless.  He cannot be fully comprehended by our finite minds.  But we must try to make a union between our purposes and the purposes of God.  By trying to merge our minds with the mind of God, a oneness of purpose results."

I've always enjoyed thinking of my Higher Power being outside of time and space.  It helps me have faith to believe that I will never be able to fully comprehend God.  It allows me to grasp the concept loosely.  I'm no physicist but I think the universe is like a gazillion miles across and it's expanding at 42 gazillion miles an hour while we speak.  I can understand that?  Pfffft.  Believing in a power greater than myself is a piece of cake.

When the concept of a Higher Power comes up in the A.A. literature it is frequently capitalized.  
Here's a partial list:

Sunlight of the Spirit

Presence of Infinite Power and Love

Maker

Father

New Found Friend

Creative Intelligence

Father of Light

Principal Director

The Great Fact

Great Reality

Spirit of Nature

Universal Mind

Czar of the Heavens

Creator

That's a pretty generous list for the unbelieving non-believer.

Catapult:  To fire or launch something.

Rocket:  To accelerate swiftly and powerfully.

"I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence.  We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed."  Big Book P. 8 (Bill's Story) and P. 25 (There is a Solution.)

Fourth Dimension:  Something outside the range of ordinary existence.

Principles Before Personalities

Anonymous:  Without any name acknowledged of a person responsible; of unknown name; whose name is withheld.

"The gradual elimination of selfishness in the growth of love for God and your fellow human beings is the goal of life.  Love is the power that transforms your life.  Try to love your family and your friends and then try to love everybody that you possibly can - everybody."

Everybody?  Really?  Even the people who piss me off?

"The spiritual substance of anonymity is sacrifice.  A.A.'s Twelve Traditions repeatedly ask us to give up personal desires for the common good.  We realize that the sacrificial spirit - well symbolized by anonymity - is the foundation of them all."  Twelve and Twelve, P. 184, Tradition 12.

". . . the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance.  It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities, that we are actually to practice a genuine humility."  Twelve and Twelve, P. 192, Long Form of Tradition 12.

"If my disturbance was seemingly caused by the behavior of others (Ed. Note: I really like the 'seemingly' qualifier here), why do I lack the ability to accept conditions I cannot change  If I am unable to change the present state of affairs, am I willing to take the measures necessary to shape my life to conditions as they are?"  Big Book, P. 52.

I had a long-time sponsor who would often interrupt me: "Principles before personalities, Seaweed, principles before personalities."  Because I was so mortified to admit I had no idea what that meant I didn't have the courage to ask what that meant, exactly.  How I was to apply that famous phrase to my day to day life.  I was often encouraged to read the literature until I found the answer to my question which in this case meant I had to read the entire fucking 12&12 because this particular answer is in Tradition 12.   

So what I found is that magnanimity in action implies that I should be more concerned about others than about myself, that I should sacrifice what I want in service to the greater good, that when I sacrifice my own selfish personal desires then I grasp the spiritual meaning of anonymity, that until I do this I'm going to struggle to achieve any real humility.

THIS is powerful stuff.