The Three Legacies

Legacy:  Something that is passed on; the long lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past.

Do you know what the Three Legacies are?  I didn't, either.  Think about it and I'll reveal them at the end of the post.

Here's the D. Lama talking about the benefits of meditation and spiritual growth: "The real value of practice is seen when we face a difficult period.  When we are happy and everything goes smoothly, then practice seems not so urgent, but when we face unavoidable problems such as sickness, old, age, death, or other desperate situations, it becomes crucial to control our anger, to control our emotional feelings, and to use our good human minds to determine how to fact that problem with patience and calm."

I like how he emphasizes that we should properly use our "good minds" to transcend difficulties.

When someone is worrying unduly about unimportant things or about things that are unlikely to happen try this comment: "Are you telling yourself scary stories again?"

My morning meeting is listed as Open which means anyone is welcome.  Almost no one comes, of course, except for alcoholics or people who are alcoholics taking great pains to tell us why they're not alcoholics, although we get an occasional nursing student or Al-Anon member.  There's a woman from Al-Anon who has been attending regularly right now.  She has never shared - identifying only as a visitor - but has told me many times how much she's getting out of the meetings.  Good for her and she's most welcome.  I showed up late on Saturday - I spent some time unsuccessfully trying to unclog my toilet - and I was in the kitchen making tea while the introductory readings were going on when she drifted in, asked if she could talk to me for a minute, then spent some time effusively apologizing for her behavior towards me the previous day.  She had actually slept poorly worrying about it.  Once again, I was so pleased to be able to lean in and whisper: "I have no idea what you're talking about."  I really didn't.  She was relieved.  

Once again, no one is thinking about you.

Recovery.  Unity.  Service.  Three of 'em.  Count 'em.

Killing Time

At the beginning of the day it can feel like there's a lot of time ahead of me.  Then, at the end of the day, I haven't had enough time to do all the things that I wanted to do.  There I sit, ready to say goodbye to the day, unsatisfied at all the stuff I wanted to do but didn't do.  I'm amazed at my tendency to say things like "killing time" or "wasting time."  What does that mean, anyway?  From time to time SuperK and I will say: "Well, that's an hour of my time that I'll never get back" when reflecting on something that felt like  a waste.  Is any of my time useless?  Why don't I look at every minute as worthwhile and necessary?  Then I wouldn't feel so annoyed at what didn't get done.

This morning a friend of mine said this to me when I was giving her a pass for missing some meetings to spend time with her daughter who is visiting from Norway - Norway, for chrissake! - " I thought of you last night saying that you didn't get sober to sit in A.A. meetings."  It's a source of constant amazement to me that someone remembers any of the crap that I bring up in meetings.  Don't they have anything better to do with their time?

Saint Seaweed

More from the A.A. pamphlet on the idea of The Home Group:

Experience with alcohol is one thing all A.A. members have in common.  It is misleading to hint or give the impression that A.A. solves other problems or knows what to do about drug addiction.

Traditionally, most A.A. members through the years have found it important to belong to one group which they call their "Home Group."  This is the group where they accept service responsibilities and try to sustain friendships.  This Home Group, for many members, becomes their extended family.

The main difference between meetings and groups is that A.A. groups generally continue to exist outside the prescribed meeting hours, ready to provide Twelfth Step help when needed.

For me personally one of the hardest ideas to eject from my mind is the thought that everybody could benefit from a spiritual Twelve Step program.  Frankly, I don't know how people walk around all day without the kind of help I get in Alcoholics Anonymous.  I spend an inordinate amount of time working on my spiritual growth and still end up acting in ways that would make your average sociopath proud.

I know that having a regular group that I attend makes me accountable in ways that are important to my spiritual growth.  People see me and get to know me and notice when I'm not around.  I'm accountable.  I give a little extra money even though half the assholes there don't contribute.  I muck out coffee pots in the kitchen after the meeting even though I'm too important to do scut work.  I block the doorway after the meeting ends to make sure no one escapes without at least being acknowledged.  I can't tell you how aggravating it is to finish cleaning up in the kitchen where I'm secretly harboring resentments over the  cheapness of some of our members and then getting waylaid by a newcomer who's not that interesting and only marginally coherent while watching a friend flit out before I get a chance to talk to them.

I am a fucking Saint.

Seaweed: Murderer

My prescription for uncovering your character defects:      
1.  Hang around your family.

2.  Go to  work.

3.  For males - drive on a congested road with millions of other people who aren't perfect drivers like yourself.  I'll let the women speak for themselves.

I have a friend in my morning meeting who recently took a trip to Italy with members of her family.  The big problem that surfaced, of course, was that they didn't do things the right way which is to say: her way.  Of course not.  She came home in a bit of a funk and did some fuming while admitting she still had a pretty good time but feeling that she could have done better.  Of course she could have.  Knowing her pretty well I guessed that her behavior wasn't bad at all.  Then, after a pause, her kids started telling her that she should start planning another trip.  Confirmation that her behavior wasn't all that bad.

Here's my spiritual progression:

1.  Quit murdering people.  Instead tell them that you want to murder them.

2.  Quit telling them that you want to murder them.  Instead murder them in the privacy of your own mind.

3.  Quit murdering them in your mind.  Quit murdering them at all.  This is the really tough one.  There really are people out there I find offensive and reprehensible.

What's that we say in A.A.?  Actions; then words; then thoughts; and then peace of mind.

Inertia, Cognitive Dissonance, and Anxiety

Inertia:  A tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged.

"Past behavior is the best predicator of future behavior" is one of the greatest truths I've come across in a long time.  The New Year is approaching.  As a general rule I don't make New Year's resolutions, correctly believing that if you want to change something you should just change it today.  I bet the success rate of New Year's resolutions is under 10%.  If I want to change something then today's the day.

Dissonance:  Mental discomfort that comes from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes.

Another great truth in my life is that I'm enlarged when I make thinking about others my main priority.  This truth has the greatest cognitive dissonance for me.  It doesn't make sense intellectually that putting my own self-interest behind that of another is going to be helpful in the long run.

Anxiety: A mental condition caused by excessive apprehensiveness about real or perceived threats, typically leading to advoidance behaviors.

Then there's this truth: anxiety is part of my make-up.  Anxiety is never going to leave me.  Anxiety is a burden under which I've always had to labor and anxiety has been the great motivator in my life.  I'm vaguely worried that something crappy is going to happen so I take the steps to prevent the crap from actually happening.  Today, I'm pleased to report, the anxiety has receded into the background as sort of an mildly annoying distraction.  It's no longer a shrieking dissonance that demands my attention and distracts me from living a normal life.  When I'm tempted to worry I can almost hear a well-practiced mechanism inside my head click into action.  There's an electrical snapping noise and the sound of well-oiled gears starting up.  I find myself moving in a practiced way through the anxiety and into the solution.  So often I find the anxiety to be mostly bullshit, stuff that is unlikely to happen or stuff that's the naked result of me failing to take care of a matter that needs to be taken care of.

Let Me Tell You What You Should Do . . .

 I ran into a woman from my meeting while I was taking my beach walk yesterday.  She's pretty new with a daughter who is, I believe, struggling with her behavior.  She comes to the meeting, too, but I'm not sure what her sobriety status is.  I'm also not sure whether or not the mom has a sponsor or talks much to other women.  She bent my ear during the walk.  I think I was being helpful.  I'm so non-threatening that I wonder sometimes if I'm an asexual, kind of non-gender specific person for women.  That being said I'm glad I have women friends in my recovery.  SuperK will tell me anecdotes about her interactions with other women and it's clear that while men and women share a lot of similarities we really are different in some significant ways.  So it's helpful for me to hear a woman's point of view on different matters.  It makes me ponder circumstances in a way that I might not normally do.

Her daughter is engaging in sexual behavior that she dislikes.  Honestly, I don't find it objectionable at all.  Honestly, I think the mom is pretty religious and she's offended to see her offspring behaving in a way that violates the tenets of her faith.  Avoiding advice-giving like it's the bubonic plague I often point out that a parent's responsibility for an adult child's behavior is really pretty much past the expiration date.  Adult children get to do what they want.  And alcoholic adult children - the daughter, who I know less well, impresses me as being stubborn as hell - imagine that in an alcoholic - are not often receptive to hectoring about matters of morality from religious parents.  I don't know what it is about the tendency of some religious people to focus on bad behavior and not to praise good behavior.  I, personally, don't take well to criticism, justified or not.  Most of us are so hard on ourselves from the git-go that hearing about our faults makes us dig our spiked jackboots even deeper into the mud and muck.  You can show your children (or your alcoholic acquaintances) your vision of good behavior.  They can then decide if that's behavior they want to emulate.  And if the daughter is living with the mother then it's within her rights to lay down some ground rules if the daughter wants to continue living there.  I don't think mom is going to kick her child out so she can either button her lip or continue irritating the living shit out of the kid by haranguing her over and over about behavior that she's clearly going to continue doing.

How much time am I spending on my recovery today?  My spiritual and emotional growth?  A lot?  Some?  Not too damned much?  As much time as I spent feeding my addictions, for chrissake?  Tell me it's that much at least!

The To Do List and Grim Death

I'm sure I'm going to be repeating myself here.  This is to be expected.  How many new stories can I have?  How likely is it that I'm going to remember what stories I've told?  And how will I be able to reconstruct all of the lies that constitute the bulk of my best stories when I can't locate my wallet this morning?

There's a woman who attends my morning meeting who's a bit on the intense side if by "a bit" you mean "incredibly intense."  I always liked her because I like intense people but she was so intense that it made me uncomfortable in an amusing way.  Intense people get shit done and they accomplish a lot and they stretch themselves into new and interesting shapes.  I like that.  For a few years, however, I felt like whenever she approached me after a meeting I was being interviewed.  I was flattered but the conservations were impersonal and overwrought.  Her A.A. attendance was a perfect example of slotting in a healthy activity as a task to be completed.  Good for her for being diligent in her attendance but . . . c'mon . . . it's not supposed to be a grim task to be checked off the To List at the end of the day.  There should be some joy here.  We should come to meetings because we want to, not because we have to.  (Ed. Note: Nothing wrong with attending meetings because you know you should while not being particularly excited about it - this is common at the start and entirely understandable.  No one wakes up one morning and says: "Boy, my life is great - what the hell I think I'll go to Alcoholics Anonymous!")

My friend remarked one morning that the meetings made her feel so good and made such an improvement in her life outside The Rooms that she was going to start attending more frequently and not restrict herself to the two meetings a week she had slotted into her To Do list.  And I found that I began to enjoy her company more.  She's really pretty funny.  I would not have said this at the start.  She was wired like a time bomb.  Very accomplished but in a grim kind of way.

I never criticize anyone.  We're too hard on ourselves as it is.

I never . .  . ummm . . . try  to never . . . give advice.

Some Great Thoughts

Karma:  A concept of action, word, or deed and its effect or consequences; the good or bad emanations felt to be generated by someone.

Good, good, good . . . vibrations . . . . 

When you are confronted with trouble, do whatever you can to overcome it, but if it's insurmountable, then reflect on the fact that the trouble is due to your own actions in this life.  Understanding that suffering comes from karma will bring some peace as it reveals that life is not unjust.  Otherwise sorrow and pain might seem to be meaningless.  Life is fair, as a general rule.  Most of us get a lot of good stuff and an understandable amount of bad stuff.  I'm luck I don't get what I deserve or I'd be in some deep doo-doo.  Really, the concept of karma must be bullshit or I'd be dying a slow, horrible death as some loathsome blood-sucking parasite.

Initially a problem can seem solid and intractable until I investigate its true nature.  In the same way as I manage my contact with fire - which is by its nature hot and can sear my flesh and cook my food at the same time - I can learn how to work with suffering in my life.

I need to consider trouble from a broader perspective.  I need to learn how to reframe bad circumstances as forces assisting my spiritual development.

When I'm pissed at someone and wish that they suffer bodily, mental, and emotional harm or am overcome with jealousy over the advantages that someone else has (or I perceive they have) I should reflect on their attributes instead of obsessing on their shortcomings (or what I perceive as their shortcomings).

Thus spake the Dali Lama: "Many phenomena cannot be said to be inherently good or bad; they  are better or worse, only by comparison, not by way of their own nature.  Their value is relative.  From this you can see that there is a discrepancy between the way things appear and how they actually are."

Cookies and Such

I was milling around the kitchen this morning waiting for the tea kettle to heat up when a new woman walked in, looked around, and then admitted she was looking for something sweet, to no avail.  A few beats later she returned, following one of our older, sugar-obsessed members (not to my level, naturally, but still pretty impressively addicted) who directed her to the church refrigerator.  They pulled out a container that held some sketchy looking cookies of unknown provence or age, undoubtedly pawed over by countless grubby fingers, and each grabbed a few before happily heading off into the meeting room.

"Ah, my people,"  I thought.  I'm pretty sure that if someone had come in over the weekend and scattered stale cookies around the periphery of the room that Special Jeff and I would have spotted them immediately, brushed the ants and big pieces of dirt off before gobbling them down.  If all that weed I smoked in college didn't fry my brain a few ants aren't going to do much damage.

The leader this morning referenced this passage from the Big Book: "But when self-will had driven everybody away, and our isolation had become complete, it caused us to play the big-shot in cheap barrooms and then fare forth alone on the street to depend on the charity of passersby."  I like the phrase "fare forth" quite a bit.  Very Victorian.  Very strong memories of becoming increasingly isolated as my drinking progressed.

I must admit this fact: The Keep It Complicated group is a special group.  It has infuriated, frustrated, and annoyed me more over the years than all of the other meetings I've attended combined, but a more relaxed, amusing, tight-knit group you'll be hard pressed to find.  There were several of us long-timers who really stuck with it over the last couple of post-Covid years until the group built up a critical mass and has grown to a sustainable size.  While I was one of the guys that kept coming back I was also noted for the bitching and complaining and judging I did along the way.  

The Dali Lama: "From the time we are born to the time we die we suffer mental and physical pain, the suffering of change, and pervasive suffering of uncontrolled conditioning."

Of Buddhas and Hammers

Om Mani Padme Hum  - "On the path of life, with intention and wisdom, we can achieve the pure body, speech, and mind of a Buddha."

I wonder sometimes if I'm a Buddha?  Not THE Buddha, mind you, but maybe a lesser Buddha or a minor Buddha.  A bush-league Buddha.  Buddha-lite - half the wisdom of a full Buddha while still staying preachey.

Most of us are alone at some point during the day.  Time alone - with myself and my Higher Power - is an incredibly important part of my day.  In this stillness, I can listen to myself and feel my feelings without the constant distractions of the day.  When I'm still with myself I'm not running away from the silence.  It means feeling my feelings, whether they're good or bad.  It's a time for reflection and prayer.  Sometimes I just let my mind idle down, let it go wherever it wants to go while making a conscious effort to gently nudge it away from the negative and towards the positive.  This is a lot harder than it sounds.  I have to fight the urge to solve problems or uncover deficiencies.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the amount of things I believe I have to work on at one time.  When I feel overwhelmed I know this is my mind telling me I need to throttle back.  Honestly, I'm not sure I have a throttle so I'm guessing I'm going to have a hard time throttling it one way or the other.  I wonder if there's a throttle control of some kind?  There could be - you never know.  I'm like the dude who gets a headache from reading too much then decides to read a little more in case the headache goes away.  I'm like the guy who beats on his forehead with a hammer and then complains about the headache. 

Anonymity - The Hardest Word to Pronounce in the Fellowship

From an A.A. pamphlet on the group as a functioning entity:  "At the level of press, television, radio, film, and the Internet, anonymity stresses the equality in A.A. of all its members.  Most importantly, the Anonymity Tradition reminds us that it is the A.A. message, not the messenger, that counts.  At the personal level, Anonymity assures privacy for all members, a safeguard often of special significance to newcomers who may hesitate to seek help in A. A. if they have any reason to believe their alcoholism may be exposed publicly."    

Most of us who have been around for a while have had someone talk about our alcoholism inappropriately.  I've gotten too old and too retired and too I-don't-give-a-shit to hide my alcoholism on an individual basis anymore although I do insist before I'm interviewed for the Six O'clock News that my anonymity be honored publicly.  At least I will if this ever happens which it never will so I don't lose too much sleep over it.  I was on a bus at a company outing once when a co-worker - a drunk not in recovery who was, at the time, lit up - started asking me very loudly: "Seaweed!  Are you an alcoholic?" before launching into a long explanation about his drinking and the drinking in his family and why he had to drink etc etc etc. no doubt boring everyone on the bus but me as I was pretty terrified at being outed.

The second prong of the anonymity equation is that we are all equal as members in recovery.  No one gets to set the agenda or force someone to do something they don't want to do.  We're all at the same level of importance.  

Except for me.  I'm special.

Katherine Mansfield was a poet who wrote in the early 20th Century:  "Risk!  Risk anything!  Do the hardest thing on earth for you.  Act for yourself.  Face the truth." 

Socializing V Solitude

I need to achieve a balance between socializing and solitude.  If I'm around others day in and day out, I'll never learn what it feels like to be by myself.  Likewise, if I'm isolated a lot, I'll never learn what it's like to be around others.  I'll be like a feral cat - I'll stay away from someone who has some cat food.  I won't get hurt but I'll stay hungry.  My recovery depends on a sound balance between the two.  

Fucking balance . . .  I'm tired of hearing about balance.  Whose great idea was balance, anyway?  I'm much more interested in probling the scary outer limits of everything.  Balance.  Grrrr . . . .  

My old buddy the Dalai Lama wants to chime in this morning on the topic of meditation:  "Do not let your mind think on what has happened in the past, nor let it chase after things that might happen in the future; rather, leave the mind vivid, without any constructions, just as it is.  If a thought comes, just look into its very nature, and the concept will lose its power and dissolve of its own accord.  Sometimes, with exertion, you can prevent a thought from fully forming.  More likely, though, thoughts will dissolve as they form, and even when they do come, they will not be powerful."

The other thing that irritates me about this recovery thing is that the instructions we're given seem to be ephemeral.  They twist in the wind, they come and go, you do this, sort of, then maybe you try that, and don't bitch because it's the exact opposite of what you've heard before.  When you meditate, as I understand the process, you aren't trying to control your thoughts, just watch them come and go.  But then the word "exertion" comes into play.  So what is it I'm doing?  Exerting myself?  Or just watching shit float in and out?  Dammit!

A New State of Consciousness and Being

From The 12 & 12:  "Maybe there are as many definitions of spiritual awakening as there are people who have had them.  But certainly each genuine one has something in common with all the others .  . . When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone.  He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being.  He has been set on a path which tells him he is really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something  to be endured or mastered.  In a very real sense he has been transformed, because he has laid hold of a source of strength which, in one way or another, he had hitherto denied himself."

"A new state of consciousness and being.  Whew."  Not bad.  Who wouldn't want that?  I like the implication that we will see a commonality with others, that this fact will allow us to tap into strength and resources that we couldn't access before.  And that we'll no longer look at life as a long slog through misery unless we can exert our will and bend it to our liking.  Both sound like a recipe for misery to me.

But then in 1955, Bill W wrote this: "There are those who predict that A.A. may well become a new spearhead for a spiritual awakening throughout the world.  When our friends say these things, they are both generous and sincere.  But we of A.A. must reflect that such a tribute and such a prophecy could well prove to be a heady drink for most of us - that is, if we really came to believe this to be the real purpose of A.A., and if we commenced to behave accordingly."

Also whew.  I used to promote Alcoholics Anonymous as THE solution to alcoholism.  Oh, callow youth!  I no longer do this.  I'm appreciative of anyone who comes into The Rooms and gives us a look.  I often say that, for the alcoholic, we have A solution to the problem of alcoholism.  It's not for every one.  If you don't like it or you think you can do better elsewhere I say: "Good for you.  Godspeed.  No hard feelings on our part and good luck to you."  But isn't this typical of our kind?  We've found something that works for us - finally found something - and now we're going to ram it down the throats of everyone within spitting distance.  This is my newish attitude about sponsorship, too.  I can help you?  Great.  I can't help you.  Great.  Go find someone who can.

Don't Fall Off a Cliff Today

"We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong.  The amount of work is the same."  Carlos Castaneda 

I cannot yell at anyone in recovery any more.  We're not stupid - we know what we're doing, at least in a vague and peripheral way.  If I tell someone who is smoking meth that it's probably not a good idea no one is going to say: "Really!  Wow, I never thought of that!  Thanks for pointing that out!"  This week a woman asked me to give her daughter - who is struggling to stay sober - a hard time, shake her up, yell at her.  "Sorry," I said.  "Not my style."  I just can't do it anymore.  Not that I ever did it much, but the people I find myself drawn to in The Rooms are generally so hard on themselves that I can't bring myself to heap on more.  Most of us know what we're doing - we just don't want to make the changes yet.  The tragedy is that it ends up being too late for some of us.

I look at my Higher Power the same way.  I'm sure there's positive stuff in the religious tomes and tracts that I was subjected to in my youth but it was the dire warnings that stuck in my mind.  I'm a negative guy who is drawn to the problem or the shortcoming in everything.  For chrissake my job was to try to find or anticipate problems in machinery.  Why would I think this wouldn't translate to my personal life?  And to repeat myself: humans who spent energy anticipating trouble survived and passed this worry-anxiety gene to their progeny.  Happy go lucky ones fell off cliffs.

Talk is cheap.  Show me - don't tell me.

The Dude Will Abide

Excitement prevents stability.                                                                                                                        Lethargy causes laxity.

The goal is calm abiding.

The dude will abide.

When your mind is too intense, and you experience excitement, you need to loosen it, like loosening the strings of a guitar a bit.  Similarly, when you have laxity, your mind is not intense enough, so you need to increase its intensity by making it a little more taut, like tightening the strings.  My mind is like a fine stringed instrument, one that Peter Townshend has bashed into a bank of Marshall amplifiers repeatedly or that Jimi Hendrix has set on fire.

"The force behind developing concentrated meditation is mindfulness, which is the ability to stay with an object, not allowing distraction.  You exercise mindfulness by putting your mind back on its object of meditation every time it falters, which will happen time and time again."

Here are the three greatest gifts that Alcoholics Anonymous has provided me:

1.  A working God, a kind God, a positive God, a non-threatening God who talks a lot about heaven and never mentions hell.

2.  A community of people who have made my life a complete joy.

3.  And three is the tricky, irritating one: the imperitive to ruthlessly, relentlessly analyze my inner workings so I can find out what's wrong with me and quit trying to find what fault with other people, places, and things.

It's not them - it's you.

Angry Chris

 Here's another Angry Chris anecdote . . . 

I state repeatedly that talk is great but talk is also cheap and behavior, action, is where the rubber meets the road.  I have heard far too many people speak platitudes with their lying mouths and then behave in ways that I find objectionable.  Don't tell me - show me.  Anyway, Chris would share driving stories early on.  I don't know what it is about guys but driving is one huge trigger.  Why we think other drivers are out to torment us personally is beyond my understanding but we seem to think that someone stranger in a car has it out for us personally.  For a while he would get so pissed that he would turn around and follow someone whose driving offended him.  Then that stopped.  The stories shifted to where there was a lot of horn-honking and curse-hurling and bird-flashing and first waving, but he no longer chased the offending party.  There was radio silence for a while until he shared the story of driving through a neighborhood on Halloween night with his girlfriend and her kids and being admonished by a parent for driving too fast.  He gritted his teeth, admitted his infraction, and then drove off slowly, muttering death threats and curses and imprecations at this person.  I loved it.  Bad action gives way to bad speech gives way to bad thinking.  Bad thinking is something I still have to work on - I'm much better at it, no longer damning people to an eternity on a lake of fire - but, boy, it's a far sight better than  

Angry Chris

The guy that chaired our meeting yesterday was a regular for a number of years before moving on to other groups.  He has about seven years of sobriety and there were a surprising number of members in attendance with about the same amount.  I love listening to people who have made it to that five to seven year window.  I believe we lose sight of a lot of people then - not necessarily to drinking but often just to complacency and ennui - but the ones that stay seem to a member to pass through into a greater realm where I perceive a real deep sense of calmness and spiritual comfort instead of looking at recovery as a necessary track.  It's so remarkable that I can see the peace reflected in their faces.

His informal nickname early on was Angry Chris because the dude was  . . . well . . . pretty angry.  I found out soon after that he didn't really like hugs so I made sure to hug him at least twice in each meeting and if I was chairing I announced that Chris really liked hugs.  It was like hugging a board.  Dude didn't move.  He was not relaxed during the hugs.  Then, a while later, I told him that I loved him.  The expression on his face!  Like I passed gas that was so offensive as to be almost lethal.  Then guess what I did?  Went out of my way to express my affection when I saw him and when he was leaving.  That's my specialty - finding a sore spot and probing it over and over.  Yesterday he hugged me first and he told me he loved me.  

Great, wondrous shit, man.  Unbelievable shit.

California Dreamin'

Balance:  A condition in which different elements are in correct proportions; having the right amount - not too much or too little - of any quality, which leads to harmony or evenness.

Many times our recovery will seem like it's proceeding at a snail's pace.  Our potential for growth is a result of effort we put into it and the time we give it.  The steady regulation of time forces growth to be gradual and balanced.  For growth to be good, it must stand the test of time.

I often walk after the Saturday meeting with a younger guy - a good dude, a dude I respect, a dude with a big Program - who is not a sponsee but I think he looks to me as a mentor or minor league, fill-in sponsor or a voice of wisdom or reason or as someone who is so stupid that I won't be able to see how awful his behavior  is.  We sometimes talk about women in recovery.  And men in recovery who are interested in women in recovery.  And how sometimes - not often but it's not unheard of - the occasional bad actor will take advantage of a woman who may be hurting or lonely or confused.  And I'm not going to suggest this is a one way street - there are plenty of wack-o females in The Rooms as well who mislead and toy with men - but men are conditioned socially to pursue women they find attractive.  As SuperK says: "I'm married - I'm not dead."

Anyway, my friend has commented on the charms of this young woman who has been with us for about five months.  She looks like a poster child for California and has a very sweet, kind personality.  A few weeks back I saw him speaking to her after the meeting - this woman and her cute sponsor - and I gave him a little shit about it in a good natured way.  Then today, after the meeting ended and I was talking to some friends, I saw him approach her again and they appeared to exchange phone numbers.  As he was walking out I sauntered over and turned both of my hands palms-up as if to say: "What the fuck?"  I was smiling.  Kinda.  He said jokingly: "I don't want to talk about it" and walked outside.

A bit later I passed him on my beach walk and he stopped me: "I've been running down here wondering how I can explain my behavior to you and I decided I'd just lie."  He was laughing but still . . . it wasn't all that funny, if you think about it.  "I'm smitten," he said.  I get it.  This girl is cute and he's been married a long time and he's been sober about seven years which is when we start to think "Really?  This is all there is?" and I think she's a pretty trusting individual, especially in A.A. where a number of us older guys have treated her with a lot of consideration and respect so far.  It's okay to be attracted to forbidden fruit and to fantasize occasionally about things we want but can't have.  We need to overcome these urges.  This is how we grow.

Be interesting to see how my buddy behaves.  He seemed contrite, abashed, embarrassed.  I hope so.  I don't hang with guys who are two-timing their significant others. 

Lonely in Our Isolation

Lonely:  Alone; solitary; a standing apart of others from your kind; sad because one has no friends or company.

Isolation: The condition of being alone, especially when this makes one feel unhappy (stresses detachment from others, often involuntarily).

From an Alcoholics Anonymous pamplet entitled "Many Paths To Spirituality" . . . . 

"Alcoholism can be a lonely affair.  Often, we drank to keep the pain of life at arm's length, and then, when the pain overran us, we drank to wash it away.  Our families, friends, employers and even complete strangers began to pull away from us, wary of our denials and skeptical of our many lies and pledges to stay sober."

Boy, do I know a lot about those "pledges" to stay sober.  What I was pledging was to keep lying as long as I could get away with it.  I'd say whatever you wanted me to stay if you would just get off my back.  "Denials" are also quite familiar to me.  Saying that you didn't do something even though it was completely transparent that you did that exact thing.

I was musing idly in my aimless retirement about that informal saying "Bring the body and the mind will follow."  I was directed in my journey to first act well, then speak well, then think well . . .or at least try to think well.  I'm awfully secure in my speech and my actions today while freely admitting that my thoughts occasionally veer into the uncharitable and sometimes get quite close to the murderous.  I give my self a break on this.  I can kill you in my mind as long as I don't actually kill you or even tell you that I'm going to kill you.  But we do get better physically, then mentally, and finally, spiritually.  It's that last one that has the occasional trip wire.

Boom!

Jeebus, the Dee Lama, and Will W.

 Bill W on spirituality and Alcoholics Anonymous: "Let us not pressure anyone with our individual or even our collective views.  In our meeting people from all walks of life come together with a common purpose.  Some members return to their religious roots, others find different spiritual paths.  And many find this 'God of their understanding,' yet never become involved with organized religion.  Still others make the group their higher power."

Ahhh, the God Problem or the God Thing, problematic for many, fatal for some, a great salvation for most.  It's nice to have a working God; you know - a God who can get shit done, who comes through in a pinch, not being someone who sounds good but helps not at all.  Free reign, here, to do whatever feels right to you.

And the Dee Lama chimes in again: "Avoid mentally neglecting the welfare of even one being.  Treat all beings with respect.  In essence, think again and again, 'May I become able to help all beings.' "

Apparently very few of us - alcoholic or not -  pay attention to this Other People thing because the Dee Ell is quite persistent in saying the same thing over and over again, repeating himself, making the exact same point multiple times, reminding us now and later and then a little later still and once more right at the very end.

And straight out of the Bible here's Jeebus himself: "Don't act out of selfish ambition or be conceited.  Instead humbly think of others as being better than yourselves.  Don't be concerned only about your own interests, but also be concerned about the interests of others."

C'mon: Jeebus, the Dee Lama, and Willy W., all in one post?  That's a fearsome threesome right there, all saying the same thing.

Festering

 The Dali L. has this to say this morning:  "Admire from the depths of the heart your own virtues and those of others.  Take joy in the good things you have done in this and previous lives, thinking, 'I have done something good!' "

It makes me think about how alcoholics - masters of the extreme - whipsaw between refusing to admit any faults when drinking to accepting our part in every bad thing that has happened in the world, forever.  How often I've heard stories of sponsors reminding the sponsored to add in the good things that we've done and to forgive ourselves, too.  We haven't been good actors but we aren't monsters, either.

And a man named William Bolitho chimed in from the pages of my daily meditation book: "The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your gains.  Any fool can do that.  The really important thing is to profit from your  losses."

Reminds me of the probably apocryphal story of a sponsor telling me: "Seaweed, any idiot can be happy when he's getting what he wants."  I'm pretty sure I made that up.  As previously noted I never let the truth  get in the way of a good story.   But it is easy to see the profit in what we gain, but is not so easy to see the profit in what we lose.  How can we change so that we see profits from the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, or the estrangement from family?  I rarely make significant changes in my being when I'm getting what I want.  I cruise.  I slide by.  And sometimes I fester.

Other People

 "Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type.  Unselfishness recognizes infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it."  Oscar Wilde.

I need to remember this the next time some asshole is doing something that is irritating me.  To be truly unselfish I must be able to enjoy the differences in others.  When I do delight in the variety of people around me, then I feel like I've achieved some true unselfishness, rid of the idea that my way is the best way, the only way.

Spake the Buddha: "You are a minority of one.  It is easy to see that the vast number of sentient beings hoping for happiness and seeking an end to suffering are more important than any one person.  It is therefore eminently reasonable for you to commit yourself to the welfare of innumerable others, to use your body, speech, and mind for their good, and to abandon an attitude of just taking care of yourself."

Other people?  Other people?!  There are other people out there?  Hello?  Hello?

Admittance Only

Unmanageable:  Difficult or impossible to manipulate or control.                                                            Admit:  Confess to be true, typically with reluctance. 

Admitted that we were powerless over alcohol   (wait for it . . . wait for it . .  )  that our lives had become unmanageable.

Have you seen the ending of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?"  The two of them are shot up bad, taking temporary refuge in a shot up saloon, reloading, talking witty shit, working on one more stupid, unworkable, idiotic plan while the rest of us can see hundreds of armed soldiers taking positions on every building in the square.  It's over.  The end is clearly visible to everyone but the two guys whose lives are unmanageable.  That's how I feel today when I'm trying to reason with someone who hasn't come to grips with the unmanageability part.  That's how they felt trying to reason with me.  I knew it to be true but I wasn't ready to admit it.

From the A.A. pamphlet A.A. for alcoholics with mental health issues: "The whole idea of being 'restored to sanity' was confusing and irritating to me until I finally accepted that working the Steps was not going to fix my mental illness.  That is because my mental illness is not a character defect.  It is not spiritual in nature.  Like alcoholism and other addictions, mental illness also tells us that we don't have it."

I also like this Buddhist reminder of the true nature of spirituality: "People who are not Buddhists - Christians, Jews, Moslems, and so forth - can generate an other-concerned attitude of equal value by thinking: 'I will bring about help and happiness for all beings.' "  No judgement.  No right or wrong.  What can I do to be of service to someone else today.

Families . . . Grrrrrr

 I've been meditating for 35 years and I suck at it.  There's a lot of noise in my head and the voices are insistent.  It's not even that they're malignant voices any more, just insistent ones.  Look here, look there, how about this, what about that!  Brains are made for thinking and they're going to get their two cents in.  And get busy!  Be productive!  Do something, do anything!

More about the holidays . . .  The holidays are often overrated and frequently inconvenient and usually a pain in the ass.  SuperK's family members are psychotic to a person and my family is nice to your face while simultaneously making you feel bad about yourself.  Her family is a sledgehammer and mine is a scalpel.  Neither is particularly pleasant.  None of these people are evil, malignant presences but they're not that great to hang out with, either.  I realize there are some really awful families and that there are some really wonderful families and all levels in-between; but I also think there are plenty of families like ours.  Not that bad and not that great but how about you just leave me alone?  That kind of dynamic.

Semantic Satiation

 "A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness."  Fontenelle

Who knows what happiness really is?  Like love, happiness can't really be defined.  Happiness really comes from within.  If we feel a sense of contentment, peace, or joy, then we can bet we're feeling some form of happiness.  As long as we're satisfied with that happy feeling, then we'll feel happiness.  It's when we expect happiness to feel differently that we'll lose our happy feelings.  A guy shared a story once about complaining to his sponsor that he was bored.  "I think what you're feeling is contentment," was his reply.  I know personally that when I spend a lot of time chasing happiness I end up disillusioned.  

Semantic Satiation:  A phenomenon whereby the uninterrupted repetition of a word eventually leads to a sensation that the word has lost its meaning.

I can't say "Happiness" right now without feeling a little weirded out.

Somniloquoy:  Talking in your sleep.  There's no reason to add this definition right now but it's a new word for me that I think is pretty cool.  It's also the name of a song by a heavy metal band called The Dead Eyes.  That's a pretty cool band name, too.

So sayeth the D. Lama:  "Make a lasting, fully reasoned decision - unshakeable by circumstance - that the welfare of so many others is far greater than your own.  From now on, to the full extent of your ability, stop concentrating on your  own welfare and commit yourself deeply to the advancement of all beings."

Be Nice, Goddammit

 "No answer is also an answer."  Danish Proverb

God always hears us, but sometimes the answers aren't immediate or guaranteed.  Sometimes the best answer is no answer, meaning we need to stay in an uncomfortable situation a little longer.  Perhaps there is something we need to learn that can't be learned unless we find it on our own.  God is probably omnipotent.  God definitely has a lot on his plate.  It's great when we turn to our Higher Power for answers but . . . c'mon . . . do we really expect the picayune crap we're praying about to be at the top of God's list?  Instead of asking for shit I want or to be relieved from the onus of shit I don't want how about being grateful for the shit I already got?  In my life there are so many examples of wishes that cannot actually be achieved but are there for the sake of me developing strong will and determination.  Grow, goddammit!

The Buddha says that compassion is the key to achieving a deeper level of morality.  He then asks why do we think we can help others when we ourselves are beset by wrong attitudes?  To paraphase: if we want to bring about the complete happiness of others it's necessary to become personally  enlightened.  We need to develop this altruistic intention.  We need to aspire to enlightenment.  Obviously I'm never going to get there and that's okay.  Just head in that direction.

Or in Alcoholics Anonymous speak: "What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.  Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities."  

See how consistent spirituality is?  All I have to remember is that my higher calling is to not be an asshole today.

It's Not Me - It's Them

 "Those of us who continually strive for perfection may find we place incredible demands upon ourselves to do everything right.  The perfectionist in us is always looking for right, but we'll never find it.  There really is no right way or wrong way to do anything.  It's whatever way we choose."

My way is the right way.  Let's just get that out of the way.

"We can learn much from our past.  We can use our past as a jumping-off point for our present way of living.  We can look away from the negatives of the past and choose not to imitate or perpetuate such negativity."

I can assure you this: you will be unsuccessful in any and all of your attempts to change the past.

"The Program teaches us to look inward at ourselves, not outward at the effects of the universe.  Tonight we can look inward and survey the feelings we have.  We can choose to keep them, or let them go."

I'm gonna keep 'em.  And I'm going to look outward.  At you.  Yeah, at you.  I know where the problem is and it's not with me.

Big Splash Guy

Morality:  A set of personal or social standards for good and bad behavior and character. 

Good morning, Dalai Lama . . .  .

"Care about others at all times.  If you cannot help others,  do no harm.  This is the essential meaning of the practice of morality."

Personally, this sounds like my advice to others: "Try not to be an asshole today."  If you can't be nice, don't be an asshole.  As I've said before I set my own personal ethics bar pretty low.  I've found it interesting that while there are differences in how people see right and wrong most of us can agree on the general tenor and tone of morality.

I've mentioned an A.A. big sister who noted how I handled my cancelled trip fiasco and the A.A. daughter who came back into town and broke away from a group of women with whom she was talking to come over and give me a hug and the A.A. grandaughter who wants me to meet her family when they come to visit over the Thanksgiving holiday.  I realize I've mentioned three women here and no men.  Well, when you're a chick magnet like I am this is inevitable.  But, to show that the guys are in there as well, I have to go back to the dude I don't like all that much who has glommed onto my morning beach walk.  I think he sees something in me that he finds attractive.  And there's another guy who has sort of drifted away from his sponsor (an excellent man, BTW) due to perfectly normal circumstances of schedule, times, the intensity and particulars of work and home life, his length of sobriety, etc. and who has asked to join me a few times on the same walk.  He hasn't asked me to be his sponsor and I haven't offered but our talks are quite similar to the ones I would have with a sponsee.  You know, I'm such a Big Spash kind of guy, always  looking for . . . well . . . ways to make a Big Splash, that I can overlook these incredible little moments.

Yeah

 I'm a cross-talking son of a bitch . . . 

The dude who led the meeting today was familiar to me as a dude who came to us three or four years back, refusing to say that he was an alcoholic.  Fair enough.  You don't have to say anything you don't want to say.  You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.  When I say  "I'm an alcoholic" it's to remind me that I'm an alcoholic, not to convince anyone else.  Whether you think I'm an alcoholic or not is none of my business and concerns me not a whit.  This guy tickled me when he was getting started.  He was annoyed and his annoyance was quite apparent.  He wasn't trying to hide his annoyance.  Frankly, I'd rather deal with the annoyed member than with the new person who is having way too much fun.  If you've started coming to A.A. it means things have gotten pretty bad and it has typically been bad for way too long a time.  Don't tell me that everything's OK.  You're in a seven A.M. meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, for fuck's sake.  How good can it be?

We had about thirty-five members today so I took up my blocking position near the door to make sure no one escaped without a greeting.  A few people pause in their outward scuttling to chat for a few beats so I believe I'm doing something worthwhile.  No one took a swing at me or spit on me or anything like that.  There was no cursing.  One of my new friends stopped on the way out to ask if I was coming to the meeting next Saturday.  "Good," she said.  "I have family coming to visit and I want them to meet you."  This Program never ceases to amaze me.  I had eight years of sobriety when this woman was born.  I'm never sure what someone brand new sees when they look at old farts like me sitting there in my pork-pie hat and thrift store suit jacket.  We never know who/how/when/why we make a difference.

Scary Stories

 From Step Eight in the 12 & 12:

"We learn how to develop the best possible relations with every human being we know.  Learning how to live in the greatest peace, partnership, and brotherhood with all men and women, of whatever description, is a moving and fascinating adventure."  Here are a few of the most descriptive phrases in the text of this relatively short Step: "a twisted or broken relationship" and "since defective relations with  other human  beings have nearly always been the immediate cause of our woes, including alcoholism" and "violent emotional twists" and "instincts in collision" and "miserly, irresponsible, callous and cold" and "irritable, critical, impatient, and humorless" and . . . well, you get the point: we suck at relationships.  "The kind of harms done to others as practicing alcoholics that make living with us difficult and often unbearable."

I heard this phrase this morning: Feeding the fear.  Which wolf are you going to feed today?

Honesty is a big part of Step Eight.  I always had a good grasp on honesty as it pertained to other people, places, and things.  I was pretty aware when I was telling a lie.  I knew I wasn't telling the truth.  But being honest with myself?  That was always a lot trickier.  I had told myself scary stories for so long that I started to believe them.

Other People

 I was helped immensely early on by being forced to hear over and over stuff that was clearly crap that wouldn't work for me.  I refused to budge.  I refused to consider the fact that the crap was working for hundreds of people in my immediate vicinity.  I would purse my lips, narrow my eyes into a Clint Eastwood squint, shake my head: "Nope.  Not going to do that.  Or that."  Eventually the inevitable question: "How's everything working for you, Seaweed?"  I could never get past that question.  It was intractable.  I had to yield to the group wisdom.  Slowly and with great reluctance.

Buddha, Buddha, on the wall . . . Who's the biggest jerk of all?

Visualization techniques to help grow tolerance: "In front of you to the right, imagine another version of yourself who is a solid mass of egotistical self-centeredness.  (Ed. Note: Yeah, that's not hard to do.  What would be hard is imagining myself in any other way.)  In front of you to the left, visualize a group of poor people, including some who are destitute, needy, suffering.  Consider that we are willing to make temporary sacrifices for a long-term return.  By the same logic, it makes perfect sense for one single person to make sacrifices in order to help a larger good.  Consider your own egotistical self there at your right side, neglecting the welfare of so many.  It simply is not good  to be like this. (Ed. Note: No nuance or equivocation there.)  The point is that you yourself must serve and help other beings."

I hate other people.  Other people are the worst.

Who Am I?

 I have to be reminded that I'm not the person I used to be by looking at the behavior of that person.  Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable if I do it honestly.  As I say often: one of the biggest gifts in my recovery has been the direction to relentlessly scour situations for my part in things.  A verifiable tendency of the human brain is to dis-remember and then re-remember a memory in a way that allows us to stay true to who we are now.  I might forget a sexist comment I made when I was a teenager because it doesn't jibe with the reality of who I am today - a dude without a sexist bone in my body. The story from the Big Book we read today was written by a gay guy.  There is not doubt that when Alcoholics Anonymous was getting started it was open to everyone . . . as long as you were a professional, middle-aged, straight Christian white male.  If not, well, hmmmm, maybe this isn't for you?

Thinking and drinking and clicking the TV remote.  I'm a great thinker.  I think great thoughts.

I was walking through downtown after the meeting when I ran into one of my friends - he was waiting for his ex-wife to drop off his kids and his ex was late and he was steamed.  I let him steam for a minute until he started to run out of steam.  If you're upset about something and you believe that you're thinking like a competent adult before you do anything about what you're steamed about and before you say anything about it to a different adult you should at least say the words you're thinking out loud to yourself.  Watching my friend deflate was like listening to the air in an overly full balloon escape.  Lot of noise at the start which starts to lose momentum before trickling out with a pathetic blat.  I know the feeling when I'm listening to my own self and thinking simultaneously: "I sound like a crazy person."

Twitching and Moving and Swirling

 From the Alcoholics Anonymous pamphlet "A.A. for Alcoholics with Mental Health Issues" . . . 

"The whole idea of being 'restored to sanity' was confusing and irritating to me until I finally accepted that working the Steps was not going to fix my m:ental illness.  That is because my mental illness is not a character defect.  It is not spiritual in nature."

The leader this morning read a section from the chapter Working With Others.  The title itself should be a nice hint as to one of the key cornerstones of recovery: thinking of other people.  Wait a minute . . . I need to think about other people?  That doesn't seem like a good use of my time.

The conversation turned somewhat obliquely to the spiritual concept of stillness.  It is amazing how many of us struggle with a brain that demands constant movement, constant stimulation and activity.  Part of the attraction for me in A.A. early on was being around people who just seemed calm.  I was swirling endlessly in a buzz of mental noise.  I couldn't believe that people could stand quietly.  I was always twitching and moving and thinking.

Once again and over and over . . . No one wants my advice.  Even people who ask for my advice don't want my advice.  Most people want someone to listen to their problems and grievances, not to tell them what to do.

Wisely Selfish

 Here's the Buddha . . .  "No matter how important you may be, you are only a single person.  You have the same right to be happy as everyone else, but the difference is that you are one and they are many.  To lose the happiness of a single person is important, but not so important as losing the happiness of many other beings.  Put others first; you yourself come next.  This works even from a selfish viewpoint.  Let me explain how this is possible: you want happiness and do not want suffering, and if you show other people kindness, love and respect, they will respond in kind; this way your happiness will increase.  If you show other people anger and hatred, they will show you the same, and you will lose your  own happiness.  So I say, if you  are selfish, you should be wisely selfish."

So I'm not as important as other people.  So I should live a life dedicated to the service of others.  Hard for us flawed human beings to get our arms around this concept.  We are naturally driven by self.  I have been pondering this dichotomy in the context of the group of men that broke off from my regular morning group and started a new meeting.  For a number of reasons this really frosted my cake and the frosting went on for an uncomfortably long stretch of time, clearly revealing some significant defects in myself.  I've passed through this phase, thankfully, and I no longer harbor any resentments.  I think the personal growth for me was realizing that while I love everyone - or try to, anyway - I don't like everyone and that's normal and fine and okay.  Frankly, I could care less whether you like me or not and I'm assuming a lot of other people feel the same way.  As I continued to struggle with the issue I finally began to realize that there are some people who live a life based on principles and morals that I don't particularly respect.  I don't mean they're bad, evil people, just not my kind of people.  There's a guy at the new meeting who's been married five times.  And divorced five times.  Another guy told about confronting a homeless guy who was trespassing on his property - a huge beachfront mansion, by the way - with a pistol.  I know guys who vote for despicable candidates if they think they can get a bigger tax break . . .  the better to buy beachfront mansions, I guess.  Some of these guys are really active in A.A. and they are particularly attractive to newer guys with rougher backgrounds.  I'm not going to sit down and discuss the nuances of a foreign film festival with some dude who just got out of prison after a ten year stint for armed robbery.  I'm not judging the guy and I'm not saying I'm better than the guy or that I can't help him or he can't help me, just that he'll probably make a better personal connection with someone of a similar background.  This is only human nature.

To Thine Own Self Be True.

Making Good Use of Irritating People

 Hard times build determination and inner strength.  Through them we can also come to appreciate the uselessness of anger.  Instead of getting angry, nurture a deep caring and respect for troublemakers because by creating such trying circumstances, they provide us with invaluable opportunities to practice tolerance and patience.

I like "troublemakers" more than "enemies."  But I like "assholes" best of all.

So . . . those assholes that are getting in my way are doing me a favor . . . 

The Dalai Lama says this: "My own practice has benefited from a life of great turbulence and trouble.  You too can come to see the hardships you endure as deepening your practice."

Is it cool to tell the D.L. to go fuck himself?  Probably not but, then again, he'd probably use the comment to grow spiritually.

A woman that I've known for a good while was at the meeting yesterday.  I did not recognize her.  I find that those of us who continue to grow continue to change, including our appearance.  When I was attending meetings with her ten years ago I always liked her but thought of her as a girl, not a woman.  I don't say this disparagingly, either - I myself was a boy and not a man for the longest time.  She was on the mend from a bitterish divorce and has acquired some of that deep patience and understanding that comes from overcoming a trying circumstance.  I personally believe that our appearance changes as we grow spiritually.  I told her after the meeting that I didn't recognize her - even though she clearly knew who I was - and that this was a compliment.  It happened to me for a few years, too, and I was almost offended but clearly perplexed when someone I knew quite well didn't recognize me any more.  Today I get it.

Irritating People

 To develop the practice of compassion to its fullest extent, one must practice patience.  Irritating people provide us some of the best opportunities to practice patience, tolerance, and compassions.

The Buddha says: "Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannot build a sound basis of compassion.  So in order to practice compassion, you should have an enemy."  THIS is why there are some many irritating people constantly clogging up my headlong pursuit of what I want.  I supposed to LEARN from them.

I don't learn anything when I'm getting what I want.

Be Nice, Redux

I was chuckling about that old advice some dude gave me in Chicago in response to my confusion about the concept of"practicing these principles in all my affairs."  He said and I quote: "Just don't be an asshole today."  I'm not even sure this ever happened.  This is one of those stories I've told for so long that it has fixed itself in my memory banks as an actual event. Honestly, if I think about it, it sounds like something I said to somebody else.  Most people have the courtesy and dignity to keep un-spiritual comments like that to themselves or to not even think about saying it.  Whatever.  The advice is trenchant and applicable if you ask me which you have not done.  "Be nice" is a polite way of rephrasing this.

I try to imagine walking into a Starbucks with Jesus or the Dalai Lama or the Buddha himself.  I'd add other historical religious figures who may or may not have existed but I'm most familiar with those three.  Would the barista be muttering "What an asshole" after taking their order?  Or would they have said something that made her smile?  Maybe remember the incident later in the day or share it with someone else?  That's what I shoot for.  That's not too esoteric a thought.  I didn't have to work on my spirituality for years to understand that this is good, nice behavior.  Sometimes I buy a drink for the person behind me in line and their reaction is always one of shocked surprise.  I wonder at the effect such a little outlay of not-going-to-be-missed-ever cash on my part creates.  It wasn't that nice but people are like: "Really?"  I was checking in for a flight once and I asked the harried gate agent how he was doing.  The dude actually stopped, looked me in the eye, and said: "Thanks for asking!"  Holy shit, he must deal with hundreds of people and no one ever asks that?  I'm getting off easy.  I've taken to politely inquiring of the person or persons in front of me at the grocery store checkout lane if they would mind paying for my groceries as well.  It always goes well.  It has never gone sideways on me.  I almost always have a lighthearted conversation with the individuals involved.  No one has ever taken me up on it . . . .

SuperK and I were in a Buddhist monastery in Kyoto, Japan, looking over some books at a table manned by a monk.  Orange robe, shaved head, big coke-bottle eyeglasses, a pleasant, relaxed look on his face, when he said: "I think you are the happiest couple in the world right now" or something to that effect.   My Bullshit Meter would have kicked in hyperdrive when I was drinking but both of us could see that he could see something in our demeanor that impressed him.  I'm not sure we felt it at the time but we had an aura that he picked up on.  See?  See how easy it is to make an impression?

I did buy a book.  So maybe he really was a grifter, the bastard.

F.I.N.E.

"Mindfulness comes from a highly developed awareness of your physical and verbal actions.  If you pay close attention to your conduct when eating, coming and going, sitting and standing, and so forth, then a strong condition of mindfulness will take hold.  True change is within - leave the outside as it is!

Usually my advice to newcomers is to be patient; have fewer expectations of yourself.  It's most important to be an honest citizen, a good member of the human community.  Whether or not you understand profound ideas, it's important to be a good person wherever you are right now."  Sayeth the Dali Lama.

To paraphrase in Seaweed Speak: Don't be an asshole today.

A new woman shared today about her daily conversations with her sponsor.  This is the sweetest woman I've met in a long time but I'm suspicious of people who are really doing well when they're first getting sober.  I'm glad she's positive and cheerful but . . . c'mon.  Nobody comes in because things are going well.  In fact, shit has to be really going sideways to even consider attending Alcoholics Anonymous.  Nobody wakes up one morning and says: "Wow, things are great.  I'm healthy, my job is going well, the family worships the ground I walk on, I've got plenty of money and no legal problems - What the hell, I think I'll go to Alcoholics Anonymous."  So if your life is a mess and you've overcome the sheer weight of fear and inertia to actually go to a meeting then you're not happy with yourself.  During their daily phone call this woman's sponsor eventually got tired of hearing "Fine.  I'm fine.  Everything's fine." and finally said that if she wasn't going to be honest then she couldn't be of any help as a sponsor . . . as an A.A. friend, even.  When we ask someone in A.A. how they're doing we really want to know.  It's hard to get past the prejudice we have of people when we find out that people who are inquiring after our well-being are only doing this as a social courtesy and not out of any real concern.  Try telling someone in the Real World that your ass is falling off.  Watch them back away with a horrified expression.

FINE: Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic, Evasive.

Are You Kidding Me?

Free will is not the liberty to do whatever I want.  It's my doing what needs to be done even when I'm facing headwinds.  It doesn't mean I can do anything that pleases me.  There are things I can't do whether they're restricted by laws or moral issues or safety concerns.  I didn't use to care about those restrictions.  Restrictions were for chumps, in my way of thinking, until I found out the consequences of not following rules.  I was a sloooooowwww learner.   Today free will means doing things like changing selfish behavior.

Today am I thinking about tomorrow or a week from now?  I have so many things left that I want to do in the increasingly short period of time I have left.  I'm better off looking at what I have accomplished in my life, my career, my family dynamics.  I'm usually surprised when, after telling someone who has inquired after my day. I receive a compliment, when I'm embarrassed at how little I think I've done.  

The Dali Lama again here talking about contentment, specifically addressing contentment with respect to food and clothing and housing . . . "By reducing expectations you will promote contentment which is called liking meditation and abandonment.  We should be contented in material areas, for those are bound by limitation, but not with regard to the spiritual, which can be extended limitlessly.  We should not be content with the degree we have when it comes to compassion and altruism."

I was fortunate to attend primary school and university with people who were often wealthy.  I was surprised repeatedly at how ordinary their contentment was; no greater than my neighbors in my solidly middle class neighborhood.  I listen to billionaires bitching about taxes and wonder: "What the fuck?  Are you kidding me?"  

Work?!

"The Buddhist is not asking to be given happiness.  Rather, happiness comes from putting the doctrines into practice.  Buddha teaches the actual refuge - how to practice the doctrine - but the main responsibility lies in your own implementation.  And we find many similarities in the monasticre life of all religions - simplicity, devotion through prayer and meditation, and service to others."

This is the thing about the particular brand of spirituality we find in Alcoholics Anonymous - at its heart it's just a repackaging of spirituality in a form that doesn't make the alcoholic gag and choke.

I went to a men's meeting once that wasn't published in the A.A. meeting directory because we took some liberties not accepted in polite society and not condoned as proper for a normal meeting.  One of the things that happened that always amused me that when we read the part in How It Works that says (referencing our Promises): "They will always materialize if we work for them" guys would start shouting: "Work?  Work?  Work??!!" like we didn't really dig the fact that work was involved.  The other line that tickled my fancy was a call and response to the reminder that this stuff can come true "sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly."  The room would thunder with this: "Sometimes real fuckin' slowly."

Our ideas did not work.                                                                                                                                  It didn't work.                                                                                                                                                Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work.

Embers Bouncing Off The Asphalt

 As part of my current Quiet Time agenda I've been re-dipping my toes into a Buddhist meditation book where one of the main themes is that a lot of human misery can be attributed to Things: getting Things, keeping Things, lusting after new Things, more Things, spending huge amounts of time and money to Thing Upkeep.  It can be hard to separate a normal desire for human comfort with an overreliance on Stuff.

Here in Southern California we live under the threat of fires consuming Things.  I'm not used to the threat of a fire.  In the Midwest the threat was from tornadoes and I personally lived on a street that a tornado blew through and on another street that was tornado-adjacent.  I could hear the thing and it really does sound like a freight train.  I stood in my darkened bedroom trying to make sense of the noise I was hearing.  Afterwards I realized that the sound was Things being violently chewed into tiny pieces.  The thing about a tornado is that you don't know it's coming until it comes and it's over in a flash.  A hurricane takes its time but there's plenty of advanced warning.  Earthquakes I guess would fall into the over quickly category.  Fires are a different animal - you can see and hear the threat but where it goes nobody knows - so you just have to sit and wait which can be nerve-wracking.  We had a major fire here five years ago in gale-force winds and in those conditions the fire is firmly in control.  There's no dousing it.  

This morning there was a vegetation fire a half mile away from our house with the wind blowing in our direction.  The helicopters making water dumping runs woke me up.  Outside I could see the orange glow lighting up the clouds of smoke from below and I was startled to see the occasional ember drifting overhead, hitting the asphalt, blinking out.  It's never good when you see fire trucks cruising through your neighborhood, looking for hot spots.  I was mildly anxious for a bit but - I'll tell you - those fire guys are amazing.  I had some time to idly look over my Stuff, my Things, and  wonder: "What if it's all gone in a minute?  What would I grab?  What would my life look like if all of this was gone?"  It was sobering but it also felt weirdly refreshing, liberating, almost.  What if I had to start from scratch?  What would I replace?  What historical treasures and mementoes and geegaws and gimcracks and tchotchkes would I mourn?  What I feel an acute sense of loss or would it be more of a relief to have all that Stuff liberated from my control?  It makes me reflect on the stripped-down life I lead when I travel - all of my Stuff in one small suitcase.  I'm okay.  I don't die.

It's easy to pat myself on the back after the danger has passed and I'm sitting securely in the midst of my Stuff.  Nonetheless, I'm happy that all of the time I've spent meditating on the transitory nature of things has left me somewhat - mostly? - liberated.  It would be a gut-punch but I'd make it out alive.

Not In The Club

 Man, man, man, am I really responsible for my own problems?  That hardly seems fair.

The Great Fact is this: alcohol and drugs really, really, really fixed my problems . . . until they didn't.  When they got inside my brain I felt a switch snap and I felt okay, right with the world.  It wasn't relaxing or fun, it was need.

A famous comedian died recently who had fought addiction for most of his life.  These lines from his memoir really resonated with me:

"I want to tell you something about addiction: No matter who it is or what substance that person is hooked on, loneliness is at its root.  For whatever reason — and I have no theory as to why — there are those of us who feel isolated in this world, as if everyone else had some secret formula for getting along, for fitting in, and no one ever let us in on it.  That loneliness resides deep inside us, at our core, and no matter how many people try to help us, no matter how many friends reach out, support us, show up for us, it never entirely goes away.  It’s vast and shadowy and also part of who we are.  omething happens when we discover a drug or alcohol: Suddenly we have a companion holding our hand, propping us up, making us feel we fit in, we can be part of the club.  It’s there for us in the empty hours when it seems no one else is."

This is from Step Five in the 12 & 12: "Even before our drinking got bad and people began to cut us off, nearly all of us suffered from the feeling that we didn't quite belong."  I like the use of the word "quite," which means "to the utmost or most absolute extent or degree; absolutely; completely."  No slop in that definition, dude.

Step Five again: "When we reached A.A. and for the first time in our lives stood among people who seemed to understand, the sense of belonging was tremendously exciting."  Most of us know that feeling of finally having landed someplace where people got us.

To Thine Own Self Be True

 I'm currently fascinated with The Program and how it can/should be worked.  I see a dichotomy: there are groups where people explain what they've done and how that worked out and then leave you alone.  You are free to follow the path they've taken or to ferret out another path or find another mentor whose actions seem to be a better fit.  My preference, natch, because if you tell me what to do I do a one-eighty and head right off in the opposite direction.  Fucking tell me what to do . . .   My hand can be caught in a vice and I won't take it out if you give me specific instructions on how to lessen the pain.  Dude.

And then there are groups that have a very stylized, organized program of recovery.  Do this, don't do that, come every day, call me at this time, or find another sponsor.  That is so not me and it is so not me both in the way I receive The Message and in the way that I deliver it.  While I'm loath to admit this I have come to see that there are some people who need to be cuffed about the neck and head or they'll never get sober.  Some of us grow up in an environment lacking in discipline.  I often wonder how my life would have worked out if my parents had turned me around and pushed me right back out the front door when I limped home in disgrace after being kicked out of college, broke, directionless, selfish.  Would it have hastened my recovery if they had insisted I get a job and pay rent?  Hard to say.

To Thine Own Self Be True.

Another One Bites the Dust

I received word that a high school classmate a year younger than me recently died.  No cause of death was given.  My high school was small: my class had about 50 in it and there have been 3 deaths that I know of; the following class was smaller still and has had 2 deaths.  We're all in our mid-60s now so this is going to start happening more and more frequently.             

When I relive some of my experiences it's easy in retrospect to pick out who had a drinking problem.  Some guys who drank stopped once they got older, surprising me, and I'm sure there are some alcoholics I didn't know about who ran in different circles, but other than that it's not tough for a drunk to pick out a drunk.  I think it's the whole personality change aspect of alcoholism.  My mind was so hyperactive and it quieted down so quickly when I was drinking that I became a different person.  I was so relieved to have some relief from the anxiety and the racing thoughts that I almost went catatonic.  They just stopped.

Sitting In The Dark

 "Call on God, but row away from the rocks."  Indian Proverb

I was the kind of guy who sat in my room with the lights out and complained about how dark it was.  All I had to do was get up and flick a switch.  It reminds me of all the times I asked for help from a spiritual entity but did none of the work myself.  God isn't a servant.  God doesn't clean up for me.  Establishing a relationship with my Higher Power doesn't mean I'm going to build a dependency outside of myself.  This Power doesn't exist for me to make request after request for things I can do for myself.  I can ask for safety and guidance in the midst of difficult situations but it's up to me to take the initiative for my own safety and well-being.

Whenever I need guidance, peace, and strength I can call on my Higher Power as long as I'm making sure I take responsibility when it's warranted.  God works through me, not for me. 

What Should YOU do? Hmmmmm......

 I had a friend ask me why I thought about his interactions with a couple of guys that he's sponsoring.  Like I have a clue what he should do.  I spoke some vague generalities.  I'm out of the advice business.  I told him what I've done in the past and assured him that he would either do the right thing or he'd fuck up and learn something about himself.  He started smiling, tapped me on the arm, and said: "That's what I love about you - you never tell me what to do."  Repeating myself, saying the same thing over and over, being redundant  . . .  I really don't know what you should do.  Tell me how it goes.

In my home group the secretary announces at the conclusion of the meeting for anyone willing to be a sponsor to raise their hand, giving new people a selection to choose from.  I generally don't volunteer mostly because I'm gone so much, partially because I believe that sponsoring a new guy is a helpful task for newer people who have some time under their belt, and marginally because new people are annoying and I hate to waste any of my precious time on - let's face it - an individual who probably isn't going to get sober.  Nonetheless a new guy approached me after the meeting yesterday and asked me if I sponsor people: "I notice you don't raise your hand."  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph . . .  A friend once told me that he always asked what the person wanted to get out of the relationship as this let him gauge whether or not he could be helpful.  I never say no.  Bastards never follow up anyway and I don't chase people.  It's hard enough to get sober if you're really motivated.  If you're approaching this casually you're likely in for a hard ride.

I like this reminder: "The statute of limitations runs out on your family once you hit forty."  Your family is fine or they aren't and if they aren't they aren't going to change after forty years so let's move on, shall we?  SuperK has really been rounding a corner with her very dysfunctional family and it's making a big difference in her happiness quotient.   My family has been much easier to deal with but I, too,  needed to come to a realization long ago that I was the brown sheep of the family - not totally black but trending that way - and that these people pretty much left me alone.  I was never going to fit in.  After I got sober I took to heart the suggestion that I was to strive to love rather than to be loved so I spent some time reaching out to people who rarely reached out to me.  After a while I thought: "I've never been close to my sister.  Why would I think that would change now?"  We get along fine but we're not close.  It's OK.  If I reach out to her less frequently she's not going to be miserable.  She  probably won't notice it.  She'll probably feel less pressure to respond in kind.

Five to Ten To Life

I like to watch people grow and develop as their recovery progresses.  I note that most meetings are comprised of people with under five years of sobriety and those of us who have been sober twenty years or more.  My perception is that we lose a lot of people at the five to seven year mark.  I'm not saying these people drink or that they regress into some prelapsarian state of moral decay but that it gets easier and more boring - once the dramatic gains of the early years are in the past and the obsession to drink isn't a cute any more - to slack off on recovery.  It can seem more like an unnecessary choir than a sanity/sobriety requirement.

This, I think, is a shame.  I love seeing dramatic surges of spiritual growth in members who are over the five year mark; an admittedly arbitrary number but one that holds water in a lot of cases.  There are a handful of members at my home group that I've seen pass through the chore stage and really blossom as individuals.  There is an aura of peace and lightness and good energy and deep seated contentment around them that makes them a joy to be around.  And it doesn't stop there.  I know of a couple of people who came to realizations when they were well over ten years sober that made a huge difference in their lives - one finally decided he was happier single and removed himself from the dating game; the other shifted her meeting schedule from Chore to Privilege, realizing that she just felt better after attending a meeting and started coming more often, on a whim, instead of slotting her attendance into a grim, unbending schedule.

Speed Kills

"There is more to life than increasing its speed."  Mahatma Gandhi

Life isn't a race won by the fastest.  If we set a goal and don't attain it within the time frame we set, we have not failed but must readjust our schedule.  Living to the fullest doesn't mean living in the fast lane.  It means taking the scenic route, stopping often to appreciate the view, and sharing the ride.

The Dali Lama:  "What we usually experience as pleasure is mostly a diminishment of pain.  If good food or drink, for example, really were just pleasurable - if they had an inner nature of pleasure - then no matter how much we ate or drank, we would feel greater and greater happiness in equal measure.  Instead if we partake excessively we begin to suffer in our bodies and our minds."

And here are abbreviated summaries of some of his suggestions for a daily practice geared at increasing our mindfulness:                                                                                                                        1.  Examine your motivation as often as you can.                                                                                         2.   At night examine what you did during the day.                                                                                     3.   Analyze your life closely.                                                                                                                           4.   Adopt a positive attitude in the face of difficulty.                                                                                   5.   Regularly evaluate the negative and positive effects of feelings and action.                                       6.   Continue your analysis.                                                                                                                             7.   Repeated reflection on the disadvantages of selfish behavior will diminish this behavior. 

Man, it's a lot of personal inventories over and over and over.  Buddhists must be difficult students just like alcoholics: repeat the same thing over and over and over.  The Lama doesn't even bother changing his words very much, preferring the same simple declarations.

Do this do this do this do this do this and . . . oh, yeah . . . do this, too.