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.

Trials and Tribulations

 Depressed:  Unhappy; despondent.

I'm sure glad I don't get into these swirling anxiety shitstorms too often.  They're very uncomfortable.  Profoundly uncomfortable, as my friend from Massachusetts would say, describing a panic attack.  It's as if I'm in a whirlpool being sucked further and further down into the vortex.  It's gentle at first but becomes more frantic and maddening the deeper I go until I feel like there's never going to be a way to get out.

Passages from the Dali Lama:

The application of Buddhist meditation to aging is another application of the ahimsa spirit.  Our increasingly fragile and infirm bodies and minds are sacred, and worthy of the greatest kindness and care.  To respect our aging at every stage is the greatest kindness we can offer to ourselves and those we love. 

(The ahimsa spirit is a Hindu principle that literally means "non-injury." It contains the principle of not causing harm to other living things.) 

I do not refer here to the promise of perpetual youth peddled by golden oldie consumerism.  Those of us who are financially comfortable and live in prosperous high tech cultures have access to so many external fixes that we tend to develop a “fix it” mentality.  We become totally dependent on external solutions and feel particularly frightened and vulnerable when these are not available or do not work any longer.  Awareness practice is learning to open up to powerful emotions without either letting them discharge themselves (as anger or self-pity, for example), or suppressing them (perhaps by trying to rationalize them or otherwise get them under control). 

For older generations people could frequently appeal to a secure belief in the God in heaven and the promise of an afterlife.  While such a belief is still available to many, for most moderns, those distant gardens of the skies have faded.  Instead, for most of us today, the search for relief from our common condition has shifted to the fantasy that through vitamins, health practices, cosmetic surgeries, right thinking, and right conduct, we can prolong life, avoid aging, and perhaps cheat death itself.  The avoidance of our mortal, transient condition is pathological.  To be mindful of our fragile fate each day in a non-morbid acknowledgement, helps us remember what is important in our life and what is not, what matters, really, and what does not.

We are implicitly asked: How am I to enlarge consciousness in this place; how embrace life here amid peril; how find the meaning for me in this suffering?  Identifying and accepting this task contributes to the enlargement of soul; flight from this task perpetuates our sense of victimization and keeps us on the run from the gods and from our own larger life.

When a human is stressed it produces a hormone called cortisol. This substance is used to help us quickly respond to an external threat - such as a monster or an angry wife or a huge monstrous being - by increasing the supply of glucose to your brain and activating chemicals that can repair damaged tissue. Your thinking quickens and your body prepares to repair injuries. But chronic stress causes the cortisol levels to remain high instead of dropping after the threat has passed. If cortisol is constantly coursing through our bodies all kinds of side effects can occur because it is meant to activate a quick, heightened response and not to maintain a normal steady-state equilibrium.

I spoke to a neighbor yesterday who has a husband suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, one of the lovely aftereffects of a lifetime of smoking. The previous night he had an acute episode of shortness of breath, despite the supplemental oxygen he uses. The inability to breathe resulted in anxiety and then a series of panic attacks which makes it even harder to breathe. Six hours later they finally got authorization for a larger dose of morphine to calm him down.

First of all, this put my achy back in perspective. Secondly, her perspective on this trial and tribulation was great - she opined that she had led a charmed life, by and large, even though the last several years had been a pain in the ass. Finally, I felt like I was of service to someone else. She seemed disappointed when I got up to leave so I wondered if maybe she needed to talk about this. I'm always trying to make myself available to help.

Tribulation: A state of great trouble or suffering.

Trial: A difficult or annoying experience.

True Friends, Real Relationships

I was friends in Cincinnati with a man who got sober in Youngstown, OH.  Alcoholics Anonymous had a big presence in New York but it was really in the Cleveland-Akron-Youngstown triangle that it flourished and spread.  As a general rule people from that area are pretty cocky about their particular flavor of 12 Step recovery, in a very good-natured manner.  They're not saying for sure that their way is the best but you can see the knowing twinkle in their eyes from a mile away when they tell you where they got sober.

So I was listening to my buddy talk and disagreeing with the content.  Because he's a good friend I felt comfortable speaking my mind, unsolicited, if I don't agree with him, especially when it's something I feel strongly about.  I prefaced my remarks with the standard line I use when I'm about to take someone's inventory but don't want to be blamed for weighing in on how someone else should live their life: "I don't mean to take your inventory but . . . "  (It's the " but" that gives it away.)  He interrupted me: "Take my inventory!  Please, take my inventory!  If I'm acting like an ass or an idiot let me know so I can stop.  I spent my whole drinking life around people who let me act like an ass and an idiot without saying anything."

This struck me as a great truth about my relationships with people who are my friends  -how I prefer these relationships to be.  My friends can say anything that they want to me without feeling like the friendship might be damaged.  That's what friendship is.  If I have to walk on eggshells then it's not much of a relationship.

I spoke with Willie this morning about an issue in his family life.  I really didn't agree with his stance but I didn't interrupt or yell - I listened patiently because when I quit thinking about what I want to say then I can hear what someone else is saying, and hopefully now and then learn something.  THEN I interrupted.  Seriously, I did explain my somewhat contradictory point of view about the matter - turns out he agrees with me, anyway - without being judgemental or belittling.  His family will do what's best for themselves which is what they should do.  I didn't insist that they follow my viewpoint and he didn't say that they would.  It was some friendly advice.  That's all.  I don't know what they should do.  He probably doesn't, either.

EZ Does It

Live and Let Live

"This, of course, means tolerance of people who think differently than we do, whether they are in A.A. or outside of A.A.  We cannot afford the luxury of being intolerant or critical of other people  We do not try to impose our wills on those who differ from us.  We are not 'holier than thou.'  We do not have all the answers.  We are not better than other good people.  We live the best way we can and we allow others to do likewise."

I am better than everyone.  Everyone needs to hear what I think about everything because I have some great advice how you can do everything better.  I DO have all the answers.   I don't even need the questions.  Tolerance?  Yuck.  Intolerance?  Hooray!  Criticism?  Let's get started!

Easy Does It

"This means that we just go along in A.A. doing the best we can and not getting steamed up over problems that arise in A.A. or outside of it.  We alcoholics are emotional people and we have gone to excess in almost everything we have done.  We have not been moderate in many things.  We are not running the world.  I am only one among many."

"I pray that I may go each day to God as a refuge until fear goes and peace and security come."  (Ed. Note:  As an English minor I have to say this should be "I pray that I may go to God each day . . . "  Just sayin'.)

Italicized quotes are always from the Hazelden book "Twenty-Four Hours a Day."

Bombardment!

 Stress:  A physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism; emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.

I can hear my mother from beyond the grave explaining to me how dire my circumstances are and/or will be from my low back troubles.  Goddamn pain is moving from my mid back to my upper back to my low back in a totally random yet coordinated attack/movement.  I dislike it.  I'm trying to make the best of it but I'm doing a poor job.

I have to be careful that I don't whine about something while making sure I'm getting it out there.  I don't want to say "fine" automatically when someone inquires after my well-being but I don't want to take a normal part of living and elevate it to the level of a nuclear attack.

Every time I talk to someone on the phone they seem to be in worse shape physically than I do.

"Never be too discouraged."

"We reviewed our fears thoroughly.  We put them on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them." (Ed. Note:  I think this aspect of the Fourth Step inventory is often overlooked.)

"The minute I stopped fighting or arguing I could begin to see and feel."

Bombard:  To continuously attack something with bombs, missiles, or artillery shells or other projectiles.

"We had not even prayed rightly . .  We had always said 'Grant me my wishes' instead of 'Your will be done.'  At no time had we asked what God's will was for us; instead we had been telling him what it ought to be.  It is when we try to make our will conform with God's that we begin to use it rightly. 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."

I'm not sure that there is a more enlightening, powerful statement in the Big Book than that one.  It affirms that I have a willpower and that it's mine to use - the problem, apparently, is that I use it like a battering ram for my own selfish ends.  I can scarcely get anyone on this green earth to do what I want and I think that - through sheer force of will - I'm going to get God to do what I want?  Whew.

Virtual A.A.

"We cannot get along without prayer and meditation.  On awakening, let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead.  We consider our plans for the day.  Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking.  Our thought lives will be placed on a much higher plane when we start the day with prayer and meditation.  We conclude this period of meditation with a prayer that we will be shown through the day what the next step is to be.  The basis of all our prayers is: Thy will be done in me and through me today."

I just read a news article postulating that the pandemic has hurt A.A. attendance.  Yeah, well, no shit.  The shift to Zoom virtual meetings was never meant to permanently substitute for in-person meetings and it was clear from the outset that some people don't like sitting in front of a screen and trying to feel the connection you get when you're talking to people face-to-face.  The pandemic has fucked everything up.  I don't think we can blame the response of A.A. to the restrictions - doing the best we can with a new, ever-changing disease - as something unique to our Fellowship.  The article quotes some people who have found other means of recovery during this long lull.  Frankly, their complaints sound like the complaints that are always leveled at A.A. - too religious; too much of an emphasis on prayer and spirituality; too judgemental; and the sense that many of our members believe if you don't attend meetings regularly you're on a slippery slope.  I was also amused that the folks who hated Zoom meetings invariably found a support group more to their liking . . . online.  It's not like A.A. just decided for the hell of it to temporarily close down all the live meetings - schools, government agencies, and businesses were all in the same boat.

"Well, that's exactly what this book is about.  Its main object is to help you find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.  That means we have written a book to be spiritual as well as moral.  And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God."  Big Book, 'We Agnostics,' P. 45.

I mean we let people know almost immediately what's coming.  I always tell people that Alcoholics Anonymous supports any program, method, or institution that helps people get sober.  There are definitely a lot of members who are rigid and doctrinaire, inflexible about how they approach recovery, but I believe you're going to find people like this in any organization that believes they're dealing with life or death situations or with matters of the soul.

Sarcasm - Hate With a Smile

September is the ninth month so a lot of the A.A. literature is focusing on the Ninth Step, the one Step that you absolutely, positively need counsel from your A.A. sponsor and friends and groups before you take that first plunge.  We want the promised relief but sometimes we approach people who should best be left alone or we forget that the amends can't cause harm to anyone else.  No charging ahead like a bull in a china shop, this one.  If you break it - you bought it.

How free do you want to be?  That's the essence of this one.  No more skulking and furtive behavior after Step Nine.  I share often that the benefit for me of this Step is that there is absolutely no one in the world that I'm afraid of running into.  My conscience is clear.  Most of the amends I made were well-received but some were not.  I am comforted that the goal of this Step is to sweep my side of the street.  I am not to try to sweep off your side.  Your reaction is none of my business.  Your side can be filthy, strewn with garbage, in bad need of repair.  None of my business.

Sarcasm:  The use of irony to mock or show contempt; a sneering or cutting remark (comes from the Greek word 'sarkazian' which means 'to tear flesh.'

Sarcasm:  Hate with a smile.

Irony:  The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

That's better - let's be ironic today and not sarcastic.

Amend:  To change for the better; to improve.

Amends: Reparation or compensation for a loss, damage, injury of any kind.

And - if we've made the direct amends from our Eighth Step list - let's remember that every day is a day where living amends are in order.  It's no good telling someone you're sorry and then continuing to engage in the offensive behavior.  We have to change ourselves - amend ourselves - into better people.  If you're not going to come into contact with the people you damaged by your drinking then just be a nice person today.  To everybody.

Spiritual Principles

"Call on new prospects while they are still jittery.  They may be more receptive when depressed.  See them alone if possible.  Tell them enough about your drinking habits and experiences to encourage them to speak of themselves.  If they wish to talk, let them do so.  If they are not communicative, talk about the troubles liquor has caused you, being careful not to moralize or lecture.  When they see you know all about the drinking game, commence to describe yourself as an alcoholic and tell them how you learned you were sick."

One of the great aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous is that those of us in recovery using the A.A. 12 Step Program are uniquely positioned to help still drinking alcoholics.  And we're careful to emphasize that A.A. is not the only game in town - if you can find something that works for you by all means go for it - we try not to be overly sanctimonious about what we're doing (failing often :) ).  The point here is that no one with an alcohol problem likes to be lectured to by someone who doesn't have an alcohol problem.  When I started to attend meetings regularly I immediately knew I was with my people - you all were speaking my language.  When I described the reaction in my body that happened when I consumed alcohol there were a lot of smiles and knowing nods.  No one told me to use my willpower or try to cut back or drink non-alcoholic beer.  There were plenty of people who drank more than I did and I was a bad drunk.

 "Be careful not to brand new prospects as alcoholics.  Let them draw their own conclusion.  But talk to them about the hopelessness of alcoholism.  Tell them exactly what happened to you and how you recovered.  Stress the spiritual feature freely.  If they are agnostics or atheists, make it emphatic that they do not have to agree with your conception of God.  They can choose any conception they like, provided it makes sense to them.  The main thing is that they be willing to believe in a Power greater than themselves and that they live by spiritual principles."

Most of our Steps are covered in several paragraphs, maybe half a chapter here and there, but the Steps that talk about finding a higher power take up a ton of real estate.  We knew this was going to be a hard sell.  We knew that using the phrases "higher power" and "not a religious program but a spiritual one" might convince some skeptics but that a lot more would stiffen their spines and resist, resist, resist, so we don't push this at all.  Finding a higher power can be difficult but most of us come around and all of us will admit that we were powerless over alcohol.

What are spiritual principles, anyway?  Here's one suggestion from a recovery center:

"The 12 spiritual principles of recovery are as follows: acceptance, hope, faith, courage, honesty, patience, humility, willingness, brotherly love, integrity, self-discipline, and service."

From a psychology magazine:

"Acceptance, open-mindedness, gratitude, humility, patience, integrity, faith, forgiveness, self-acceptance, service."

More psychology:

"Gratitude, humility, optimism, forgiveness, generosity."

The general idea is that spiritual principles are the path laid out for experiencing our lives free of unnecessary suffering with strength and resilience to experience the pain and fear that must be walked through as a part of life.

Courageous Valour

Courage:  The ability to do something that frightens one; strength in the face of pain or grief; confront agony, pain, uncertainty, or intimidation without showing fear; the ability to control fear.

Valour:  Bravery in battle.

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to walk through it."  Variously attributed to Nelson Mandela, Mark Twain, or Franklin D. Roosevelt.  I have no doubt that Ozzy Osbourne, Pete Rose, and Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain have also received credit.

We read a section from one of Bill W's letters this morning where he shared some of the affirmations he used when he was in pain or suffering from depression:

This, too, shall pass.

Thy will, not mine be done.

Show me how this experience can teach me to be of service.

Not exactly earth-shattering new material but all of them work in a pinch.

This is an Eleventh Step meditation meeting so I found the leader's choice for a topic of courage to be interesting.  He framed his sharing with the second third of our Serenity Prayer: "God grant me . . .  the courage to change the things I can . . . "  I've always thought that the final couplet ". . .  and the wisdom to know the difference" was the linchpin of the prayer.  To paraphrase: Give me the courage to do something I need to do or the serenity to wait patiently if I'm not supposed to do anything and help me know which is which.

When I'm in pain - or struggling with a massive bout of anxiety - my inclination is to Do Something! to make it go away.  Do anything!  Get moving fast!!  Meditation is one of the most important techniques for ma way for me to slow down and get in the moment.  When I'm quiet then the small, still voice of my higher power, my conscience, my intuition, my whatever makes itself heard.

Change Everything

 Willingness:  Ready to do something that is not a matter of course.

Always a good topic, willingness.  The speaker brought up the passage from the Big Book where - in our attempts to calm newcomers who are uncomfortable with the idea of a Higher Power - we stress that willingness is like encountering a closed door: all we have to do is open it a little bit, peek through the crack.  Often we'll slam the door shut again - self-will running riot - but then the next time we can open it just a smidgen more.  Eventually a lot of us get through.  It's a slow process for all of us.

We learn how to think of others in Alcoholics Anonymous.  It's not our natural state of mind and not an easy process prying the focus off of ourselves.

Content:  Satisfaction; pleasure; contentment.

Happy:     Experiencing the effect of favorable fortune.

Happy?  Or content?  It's amazing how much we talk about this pursuit.  The guy this morning used the word "peaceful" to describe his state of mind.  I try to avoid the state of mind where I'm pleased I'm getting what I want or avoiding what I want to avoid.

Service:  The act of being of assistance to someone.

Service is providing what someone needs, not what I want them to have.  It's not service if I'm just doing what's easy for me.

Change everything!  All you have to change when you come into A.A. is everything.

Joy To The World!!!!

Joy:  A feeling of great pleasure and happiness, as in "tears of joy."  The Bible would suggest that joy is the ability to respond to life's difficult situations with inner contentment and satisfaction.

My insurance company - tapping some vein of infinite wisdom that probably makes sense to them but is opaque to normal people - has decided that the refill for my low dose of a mild anti-depressant has to be prescribed by a mental health professional, that my regular doctor can no longer do this, even though I've taken the same thing for over 20 years.  Fine.  Whatever.  I set up an appointment with a counselor who, of course, had to spend some time getting to know me.  Also fine.  I've seen some mental health professionals in my time in The Program and found all three of them to be wonderfully helpful.  I'm wide open to suggestions.  Because this drug treats depression and anxiety some of the questions she asked were to assure her that I wasn't going to kill myself or go up on the top of some building and start shooting at people.  Fine and that makes sense.  I'm pretty sure she's a caring person who doesn't want me to do either of those things.  And on a more cynical note I'm also pretty sure that the insurance company doesn't want to pay to clean up the aftermath of them.

So I get asked questions wondering if I have suicidal thoughts or do I lose my appetite and the like.  The one question they always ask is what brings you joy?  That one always freezes me in my tracks.  Joy.  Joy is such a religious word to me.  I think of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir joyfully singing some joyful song.  I do a lot of things that I find satisfying but I'm generally not a whoopie kai yah! kind of person.  I don't live on the surface of my emotions like that.  I do things that bring me satisfaction and pleasure and a sense of well-being because I've accomplished or investigated something important to me, but happiness?  I dunno.  That's a weird concept.  That's a kindergarten concept.  I gave away my Matchbox cars a long time ago.  (Funny story about that - I carried a case of those around for 30 years, from city to city and state to state, having bought into my mother's assurances that they were "worth a lot."  I think I sold like 100 of them for $12.)

SuperK and I had a nice, free-wheeling discussion about joy last night.  She's got a better handle on joy than I do but she's a little vague sometimes as well.  I slept well, had a nice Quiet Time, and then decided to join a downtown L.A. meeting I go to from time to time.  (People from all over the U.S. show up, probably hoping to see a movie star, which is not happening.)  The Tuesday format is to read from the Daily Reflections which I will reproduce verbatim here:

"Sobriety fills the painful "hole in the soul" that my alcoholism created.  Often I feel so physically well that I believe my work is done.  However, joy is not just the absence of pain; it is the gift of continued spiritual awakening.  Joy comes from ongoing and active study, as well as application of the principles of recovery in my everyday life, and from sharing that experience with others.  My Higher Power presents many opportunities for deeper spiritual awakening.  I need only to bring into my recovery the willingness to grow.  Today I am ready to grow."

We have all kinds of names for this phenomenon: A God shot or a coincidence or serendipity.  I just know that if I keep showing up then these things keep happening.