Have a Drink on Me

My experience in Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me that it's difficult to remove by logic an idea not placed there by logic in the first place.  Trying to tell someone who is still drinking - someone who probably thinks that alcohol is the only thing worth living for, the last refuge, a best friend and lover - that it would be in his best interest to stop drinking is a fool's errand.  Confronting deeply held, habitual feelings with logic seldom works.  I know I was moving through the world mostly on autopilot, doing the same things today that I did yesterday.  It's why I was surprised when there wasn't another beer in the fridge or there was only one Oreo in the bag that I bought that very morning.  The motivations and habit patterns that were underlying most of my behaviors were simply illogical.

I heard a woman share recently about feeling perplexed when she found herself eating a piece of cheesecake when she wasn't hungry.  Fill a want without thinking it through.  I get that.  Have another drink!  Have a drink on me!!

I went to the doctor not long ago so he could have a look at a troublesome wart. 

"That's not a wart," he remarked.  "That's a basel cell carcinoma."  Skin cancer.  He made me take off my shirt and he found a couple more, including a squamous cell carcinoma.  Turns out everything turned out fine but, man, that cancer word gets your attention.  The good news is that we're living longer - the bad news is that the years are tacked on to the end of your life.

Cross-Talking SOB

 Here's the doctor . . . 

"Feelings of love or the lack of it are noticeable in all the mundane ways we show that someone matters to us, especially in the amount and quality of the time we are willing to give them.  This is why there is truth to the adage that we all get the marriage partners we deserve, and why most of our dissatisfactions with others reflect limitations in ourselves."

I've enjoyed the A.A. adage that whenever we see behavior that we disapprove of we'd do well to look at ourself.  Man, do I hate seeing my shitty behavior on display in another person.  I can talk myself into believing that what I sometimes do isn't so bad but it sure looks huge when someone else is doing it.  Quick to judge; slow to act.  The ability to spot my own defects and to overlook yours is a sign of some accruing wisdom.

I left the meeting early today.  Real early.  The homeless are drifting back in but the real problem is that I'm finding the meeting annoying.  I'm not sure what to do about this and I'm not sure that there's anything to be done anyway. The time I've spent traveling with no access to meetings has sure made me aware that I have indeed grown spiritually.  I enjoy/have enjoyed/will enjoy the interactions I have in face to face meetings but I can see that sometimes I'm just filling up a few hours when my time might be better spent doing something else.  Habits are good until they become ruts.

I need to keep my tendency to criticize others while judging myself more gently always in mind.  One of the difficulties with my meeting attendance is that I only go to one meeting and I've gotten too familiar with the members to see them as often as I do.  For example, we had a man with a ton of sobriety start coming to the meeting regularly who was a bit of a bleeding deacon.  Not obnoxiously so but a bit of a know-it-all.  He led the meeting one morning and commented briefly after each member shared.  I wouldn't do it but I didn't think it was a big deal.  A couple of our long-time members were incensed at what they thought was cross-talking, a big A.A. no-no, so they cornered him in the kitchen and called him out.  That was it for him - haven't seen him since.  But these two characters regularly talk through the three minute timer that the group voted to enforce.  They don't go over by a couple of seconds and we're not talking about a new person in crisis - these are both long-timers in recovery.

Such problems I have . . . .

It's Not Them

 "Blame yourself if you have no branches or leaves.  Don't accuse the sun of partiality."  Chinese Proverb

How often do I use my past to find reasons for my faults or shortcomings today?  Because I came from this kind of home or had those kind of parents or were denied this or that privilege or suffered from whatever hardship doesn't give me license to place blame for the way I am.

We live in a culture in which the sense of being wronged is pervasive.  If every misfortune can be blamed on someone else, I'm relieved of the difficult task of examining my own contributory behavior or just accepting the reality that life is and always has been full of adversity.  Most of all, by placing responsibility outside myself I miss out on the healing knowledge that what happens to me isn't nearly as important as the attitude I adopt in response.  The process of nursing blame for past injury distracts me from the essential question of what I need to do NOW to improve my life.  When I check my memories against the versions of others who were also there, I find that my version is often a work of imagination.  This, unfortunately, doesn't stop me from paying it undue attention.  I believe that coming to terms with my past is a process of forgiveness, of letting go, and for me this is simultaneously the simplest and most difficult thing that I have to do regularly.

So much of what I read in spiritual or recovery literature comes back over and over to the idea that I'm responsible for much of what happens to me and when I'm struck by some unseen, unknowable problem or trouble or calamity it's something that happens to all of us.  The idea that I can skate through life pain-free kept me tethered to the bottle and to the pipe.  I can smoke bowls until smoke comes out my ears and I'm still going to get sick and die.  Or hit by a bus.

No matter how I try I have been absolutely unable to change the past.

If you don't like hard rock music don't go to a Metallica concert and then bitch about it afterwards.

Simply Being of Service

I pray every morning that I be shown how I can be of service to someone else.  For the self-absorbed among us this is harder than it looks.

Yesterday SuperK and I ran into a woman we know casually while we were taking a walk.  We inquired after he husband.  She proceeded to talk for a good ten minutes about his recently diagnosed skin cancer.  She did not pause for breath.  She apologized for dumping all of this on the two of us, unnecessarily, I think.  I believe this was an example of service.  At my core, in my essence, instinctually, I don't really care about this woman or her husband.  I care about me.  Me, Me, Me!

There's a dude from Sweden who is often at my coffee shop reading.  I saw that one day he had a book by Kafka.  Kafka is not a coffee shop book.  It's a graduate level comparative literature book.  I know him a little now because we talk briefly about books.  I am under the impression that he is pleased and a little surprised that I've noticed what he's reading and know enough about the topics to comment intelligently.  A little service, maybe?  Does he leave feeling a little better about himself?  I hope so.

 

We stopped by a different coffee shop while waiting to attend a play in L.A. last night.  I always - always! - ask the person providing my Overpriced Specialty Coffee Drink how they're doing and this often leads to a conversation.  (I always say "I've never had a bad day" if they happen to ask how I'm doing - try it some time: it's a hell of a conversation starter.)  She gave me a very cheery goodbye.

It's not that hard.  Don't be an asshole.  Be nice.

Seaweed: Master Bitcher

Grievance:  A real or imagined wrong or other cause for complaint or protest, especially unfair treatment; a cause of distress felt to afford reason for complaint or resistance.

"And did you get what you  wanted from this life, even so?  I did.  And what did you want?  To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.  Raymond Carver

Somewhere between ignoring the past and wallowing in it there is a place where we can learn from what has happened to us, including the inevitable mistakes we have made, and integrate this knowledge into our plans for the future.  Inevitably, this process requires some exercise in forgiveness - that is, giving up some grievance to which we are entitled.

I like how the definition of grievance always includes the intimation that the wrong may not be real.  Boy, for people who like to bitch, to find reasons to complain that are found outside of who we are, this definition is sweet, sweet as honey.  Here are some suggested synonyms for grievance: bellyaching, bemoaning, bewailing, carping, complaining, gnashing of teeth, mutter, squawk, whine, Jesus, this sounds like most of my shares at meetings . . .  These are not kind synonyms.  We all know the feeling of being cornered by someone who bitches about everything and wishing that it would just end, already.  All of us need to get stuff off our chests but the idea is to get to the place where the stuff is actually off your chest.  Re-litigating stuff over and over just gets boring after a while for the listener.

A capacity for laughing is one of the two characteristics that separate us from other animals.  The other, as far as I know, is the ability to contemplate my own death.  I think the connection between these two uniquely human attributes that cuts to the heart of the great paradox of my life: Is it possible to be happy in the face of my own mortality?

More of This

A note I sent to an old high school friend recently. 

Hey, dude . . . . 

As you know I've been trudging along for a while (36 years in August!) in A.A.  We call it a spiritual movement which I do believe to be true although we can get a little smug about this from time to time.  As I've grown over the years I've had the occasion to think about the relationships I've had with family and friends during my life and to contemplate what to call the connections I've had with so many people.  I recently reconnected with a guy from high school who was three or four years behind us and he surprised me by calling me one of his best friends even though we had not been in touch for a long time.  It got me thinking about the rich tapestry of friends and family who have come in and out of my life over the years and how amazing it has been to get to know people and love them.  You know . . . it's funny how often I try to put someone in a category and then ask a lot of myself and of the other person in terms of connectivity and contact and the frequency and intensity of all this stuff.  I've gotten a lot more generous in how I think of people who have been in my life; more loosey-goosey and open-minded.  The people I've been in frequent, uninterrupted contact with since I was a kid; the people who I'm grown close to in just the last few years; people that I've become disillusioned with and those who used to disillusion me before I grasped their nature; old friends that I no longer see but who hold a dear place in my life; what family means; and on and on and on.  My friend, I have thought of you often over the years and it never ceases to bring a smile to my face.  Reds games and Madison Bowl and talking Keith into letting us go to your house on Scroll night so we could get stoned and listen to music and finish up the sports page much more quickly than we would have if we had stayed at school. 

I send this without obligation, brother, just a love letter from Southern California, thanking you for being part of the rich tapestry of my life.  If I'm not mistaken the last time we saw each other was in a bar in Boston where a few of us got together to toast BYL before he left for Brazil on his first Foreign Service assignment.  My recollection is that I was walking toward the bar or the bathroom when you strolled in.  "Hi, Seaweed," you said, deadpan.  "Pete," I replied and continued walking.  We caught up later, of course, although those details escape me, but that perfectly timed exchange was priceless.  I was pretty newly sober so that has to be 35 years ago.  Fuck, how did we get so old?!

Peace, brother.  All is well All is well All is well.

Our Delusional Past

 Things were not really better long ago.  What happens as we try to come to terms with our pasts is that we see our lives as a process of continual disenchantment.  The cumulative burdens of our imperfect lives are harder to bear as we weaken in body and spirit.  Our yearning for the past is fueled by a selective memory of our younger selves.  Memory is not, as many of us think, an accurate transcription of past experience.  Rather it is a story we tell ourselves about the past, full of distortions, wishful thinking, and unfulfilled dreams.   People see themselves differently in the present, and as a result, they have different narratives of how they got there.  If you don't believe this compare your memory of some past events with someone else who was there.  It can be jarring how different the recollections can be

"To know someone fully  and love them in spite of, even because of, their imperfections is an act that requires  us to recognize and forgive, two very important indicators of emotional maturity.  More important is the fact that, if we can do this for other people, we may be able to do it for ourselves.  My constant challenge isn't to seek perfection in myself and, more importantly, in others, but to find a way to be happy in an imperfect world."

There's a woman who is a regular at my home group.  I've always liked her but kept my distance because - like me - she is wound way too tight.  Waaaaaayyyyy too tight.  When I talked to her I felt like I was being cross-examined by a semi-hostile prosecutor.  She was always taking notes and asking for clarification on something I had shared.  At 8 in the morning it was too much.  Waaaaaayyyyy too much.  I identified so closely with her sense of purpose and her drive to accomplish a lot and get a lot done while almost always feeling that her efforts weren't enough.  It can be frustrating to end the day suspicious that more could have been done even though a lot of people comment on how much I've done.  My self-fulfilling prophecy of doom.

After the meeting a while back she came over and said: "You know, Seaweed, I've really come to love you . . . "  A couple of people who overheard her laughed out loud - it sounded like she was implying that she could stand me up to that point.  Eh, maybe she did, who knows?  I didn't take it that way.  I believe that love comes in all kinds of forms and fashions; it can come quickly and it can take forever; it can be deeper or more casual; it can stand the test of time and it can ebb away; it's all valid in our imperfect world.  I took it as a great compliment.  It's all good.

Loose and Easy

Loose:  Free from a state of confinement, restraint or obligation

“Wear the world like a loose garment, which touches us in a few places and there lightly."

 St Francis of Assisi

This phrase has always meant a lot to me.  I have to be engaged in the affairs of the world but I'm not in control of the affairs of the world.  I can't just sit on the couch (Ed. Note: I don't have a couch) and let things happen - I have to locomote and then see where the locomotion takes me.  I'm in the canoe, floating down the stream but it's the stream's ballgame: rapids, pools, long, calm stretches, none of it is any business of mine.  The stream's the stream.  I can sit on the shore all day, pissed that nothing is changing, or I can get in the canoe and see what lies ahead.

I'm a spiritual being having a human experience.  It's OK to mess up.  I'm in this world but I'm not of this world.

Sometimes I get into these stretches of time when I feel a deep sense of calm, a deep sense that everything is fine.  I have no idea most of the time where this stuff comes from.  I no longer try to figure it out or make it last longer or bitch when it stops, but I sure enjoy it while it's happening and that's the big change in me.  Part of this sensation is the result of a loosening of my grip on my relations with other people: family, close friends, people who piss me off, everybody.  Their business is none of my business.  Quit trying to force things.  Stay in contact, but loosely.  There's nothing worse than someone who is bitter that someone else isn't playing by their rules.  What gives me the right to dictate how another person interacts with me?

Loosely, man, loosely, everything loosey-goosey.

Drugs, Medication, and Alcoholics Anonymous

I have a few books and pamphlets that I read each morning in my Quiet Time.  They come and go, ebb and flow, I like something until I get bored with it and put it into mothballs for a while, I add something new and it often works but sometimes it doesn't and that's all okay.  I picked up the Bible again - a book I've read a few times and found very comforting - and tried some Old Testament stuff and then right back onto the bookshelf it went.  Too many suggestions that I beg for forgiveness and watch out for eternal damnation and so on and so forth.  Too many pithy little aphorisms in Proverbs: "A wise man is like a tree that grows strong and true."  What the fuck does that mean?  Too much psalming in Psalms.  Not sure why this is surprising.  The definition of a psalm is a sacred song or hymn that, while it can be read, is meant to be sung.  I'm officially banned from any song singing in the Seaweed household because of a really, really awful singing voice and even if this wasn't true I can't see myself singing at 6 AM.  And who among us isn't suspicious of a word that begins with a P and then has an S?  C'mon.  Put some effort into it.

I picked up a couple of Alcoholics Anonymous pamphlets at my meeting and added them into the space left vacant by the Bible rotating out.  It has two sections, more or less: one devoted to stories about people who have a mental illness that no amount of Step work is going to cure and the other to those of us (I'm looking at you, Seaweed) who tried to justify drug use as a habit that wasn't a habit.  In the first case, well, yeah.  A guy who has been coming to our meeting for years - smart dude, seriously, but looking more and more ravaged as time passes - paused one morning and asked in a moment of clarity: "Let me ask you a question: Do you hear voices in your head?"  This guy can work The Steps from now to eternity and he's never going to get better without medication.  Just because you can't isolate definitively 

The second category is a little more insidious.  I think often of my buddy LSD Tom who threw up a fearsome defense when I called him out on his occasional use of hallucinogens and stimulants.  And he was able to back it up with some pretty impressive A.A. dogma; we are, after all, an organization that stays out of anything that isn't alcohol related.  I even called the folks at our N.Y. Central Office and they didn't touch the topic with a ten foot pole: "Not our business, dude."  Who among us defiant alcoholics wants to be told what to do?  Who among us, when told what to do, defiantly does the opposite thing?  We're like feral animals - you can't just sit down and pet us.  You've got to put a bowl of food out so we can get close . .  . but not too close.  All I can do is explain what worked for me; suggest that any troublesome topic be shared with lots of different people; and - the real test of valor - bring it up as a topic at a meeting.  No one ever does this, as you might imagine.

Love 'Em All

 When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about  it and want to get on to other things.  Robert Pirsig

I ran into a couple of guys from the Malcontents meeting downtown yesterday.  I'd put them in the category of Ringleaders.  One of them made an overtly political comment almost immediately and certainly unbidden.  I pretended I was on the phone.  Actually, I was listening to some Van Halen.  I moved on.  I also ran into a couple that are Malcontent's regulars.  I'd put them in the Just Going Along and Ignoring Uncomfortable Facts category.  They seemed sort of tentative around me and the woman made a comment about "praying during the meeting this morning," intimating that it wasn't a great meeting.  I'm assuming that my poorly concealed and overtly dismissive attitude about the Malcontents is common knowledge.  Fuck do I care?

Still love the couple - the dudes are a little tougher but I guess I love them, too.  Love is more than Valentine's Day and passion and giddy feelings of ecstasy.  Love that lasts, that stays with patience and strength, is the love that binds all of humanity.  It is what makes us smile at a stranger, it's what makes long-term friendships, it's what makes us feel pain, as well as joy.  Love is the connection that we have with every person in our lives.  It's what separates us from the animals.  Most of the animals, anyway - not the dog who lives next door.  That kind of affection is more pure than anything I feel for any human.

Perspective: A Musing

 Perspective:  A way of regarding situations, facts, etc. and judging their relative importance; to think about a problem or a situation in a wise and reasonable way; to compare something to other things so that it can be accurately and fairly judged.

There's the old story about blindfolding five people, then positioning them at various places around an elephant.  The guy holding the trunk is going to have a much different perspective on the animal than the guy holding a tusk, and the guy right below the elephant's ass . . . . well, I don't know what to tell you.  Same elephant, different perspective.  I look at a thing and categorize it based on my education, knowledge, experience, etc. and the next guy looks at the exact same thing and sees something completely different.

My perspective used to be distorted by the bottle of beer I was peering through.  Not a great perspective.  The background that I could see was of a devil torturing bunnies; if I moved a couple of feet to the right I could see small, sylvan children feeding some bunnies.  Same glass of beer, different perspective.  I didn't know that I could move around a little bit and see something that seemed awful in a positive light.  I've gotten to the place where I see pain and adversity as a strength, a pathway to greater knowledge and serenity, to wisdom, that unique marriage of intelligence and experience.  I believe that Alcoholics Anonymous has helped convey to me a sense of the world as an imperfect place in which it is possible, nevertheless, to be happy.  Not ecstatic, not euphoric, but happy.  We can get to the place where we don't fear adversity and we don't crave pleasure.  We have some perspective on what's going on.

It isn't good and it isn't bad - it just is.

It Really Is Me

More from the good doctor . . . 

"Parents can try to teach the values and behaviors that they have found to be important but it is the way we live as adults that conveys the real message to our children about what we believe in.  Kids have a keen nose for hypocrisy.  If there are major contradictions between what we say and what we do, our children are likely to notice and be cynical, but as independent human beings, they bear the ultimate responsibility for how they incorporate into their own lives what they have seen or learned in childhood." 

"Those distinguished men had the nerve to say that most of the alcoholics under investigation were still childish, emotionally sensitive, and grandiose."  Twelve and Twelve, P. 124.

I laugh out loud when I read these observations from a clinical psychiatrist and see how easily I could replace "children" with "alcoholics."  If someone called me childish, sensitive, and grandiose it wouldn't bother me because I would have beaten them to the punch.  "Like I don't know I'm sensitive and, by the way, you forgot to add triumphantly self-righteous and smugly arrogant to the list," I'd add.

I had an emotionally distant father who was prone to angry outbursts and a somewhat depressed mother who was afraid of everything.  I ended up with all of these attributes, of course, and that was all I could see for the longest time.  My terrible parents and the shitty job they did raising me.  I made it sound like I was born in a war torn shithole country.  I was raised just fine; quite well, actually, in a supportive and safe environment.  My father had a quick wit and a great sense of humor and my mother was loving and unwavering in her commitment to the things that were important to her.  I couldn't see the good they passed on for the longest time because I was obsessed with blaming someone else - anyone else! - for my poor behavior.  I'll never forget aides and staff at my father's hospice ward coming up to me after he died and saying how much he brightened their days.  I was still having trouble focusing on what was wrong and what was right.

My parents were fine.  My parents were great.  I was the asshole.

An Old Resentment Burbles To The Surface

 When I have a resentment towards a person, place, or thing I have a toolbox that I usually open up.  I select a tool and work on the resentment.  Most of the time I dig and dig until I get to the root cause which I dig up and toss onto the compost pile where it slowly decomposes into a slimy, humid mass.  Usually, I'm happy to report, the root isn't too deep but sometimes I'm almost to China before I can get the whole thing out.  Almost always I'm able to find out where I'm wrong and take responsibility for the defect or behavior which leaves the person, place, or thing that/who is pissing me off out of the equation altogether.

To quote someone near and dear to my heart: "Whenever I'm upset I go find a mirror."

But sometimes . . . sometimes . . . the resentment is undiggable and I'm left with the less attractive solution of letting time take some of the burn and sting out of the affront.  When the anti-government types broke away from the Keep It Complicated meeting I was not happy about it.  To make matters worse, I believe - without evidence - that someone who has a lot of money bought a warehouse and slapped a "church" label on it so they could reap a big tax write-off.  The "church leaders" look like they belong on Cell Block B, IMO.  It took me a long time to get to the point where I really don't give a shit about the meeting or the people attending it anymore.  It - like almost everything - is none of my business.  No one is asking my opinion.  That being said I don't care to have much to do with the ringleaders and their sycophants.  Occasionally I'll spy one of them here or there and I duck my head and hide or I keep walking, flashing a big smile and slapping a high five, but not stopping to talk.  I don't feel bad about this.  I've stated many times that I love everyone, I'll help anyone who needs help, but I don't like some people and there are a few who really piss me off.  Fair enough, I believe.  I'm not everyone's cup of tea.  I recognize this and the fact actually gives me some twisted, perverse pleasure.

At the time one of the people who started attending this meeting was my sponsor.  He's a good, kind man who does a ton of A.A. service work so I truly believe he felt it was important that new people have the opportunity to attend live meetings.  I get it but I don't buy it.  I think it's important for me to drive my Very Expensive Car 100 MPH on the freeway any time I want to and that everyone else should get the fuck out of my way.  I explained that once to a State Trooper.  He was skeptical of my reasoning.

I quit calling the guy.  My sponsor, not the State Trooper.  I was angry at the events and he was part of the situation.  The relationship lapsed.  Then, his chronically ill wife passed away so I gave him a call.  He was understandably busy and - after a short conversation - told me he'd get back to me, which he never did.  Recently he called me and we made some tentative plans to take a hike together.  The more I thought about the more uneasy I became - I found myself in heated mental arguments with the ringleaders of the group again.  It has taken me a long time to let all of that resentment blow away in the wind and it's more a case of time passing than me losing the resentment.  I've just forgotten about it, gotten tired of the mental angst.  Normally I overcome my resentments but there are some that I am unable or unwilling to overcome.  

I almost feel like - this is an extreme example to make my point - that if someone who isn't a racist hangs around with racists it shows some tendencies or sympathies.  So I canceled our hike date with what can generously be called a misdirection and more accurately a little white lie and brutally honest a lie.  I will say that this is one of those cases where to tell the truth would be hurtful so I don't feel too bad about it.  This guy is driving hard to the hoop, proposing other dates or activities. Now I'm in a Radio Silence mode.  I can't be roused.  I have not responded to inquires.  

Go away.  Leave me alone.  :)

You're In or You're Out - You're Honest or You're Not

I worked briefly with a guy who had a year or two of sobriety.  Work is a generous word as he did exactly whatever he wanted but I think it made him feel better about himself to say he was working with someone.  One morning at our meeting he admitted that he had been eating THC gummies or some such crap and he "thought" he'd have to redo his sobriety date.  He seemed kind of surprised.  He seemed that he knew he was using but wanted us to confirm this on the off chance that he could keep getting high while declaring he was clean.

I was pretty impressed.  My sobriety date is about five months after I took my last drink.  I clearly recall how difficult it was to come into a meeting and tell everyone I was smoking weed.  It was galling to have to redo my sobriety date but I knew that I was getting high and that it was a substitute for drinking.  I justified it for that period of time by saying that I didn't have a problem with pot.  I could take it or leave it.  It wasn't like malt liquor.  In The Rooms we call it Non-addictive Marijuana.

Yeah, bullshit.

And then there's my buddy LSD Tom who adamantly states that he's sober even though he uses the occasional hallucinogen before a music festival or does a little bump of coke before he works out.  I like that word "bump."  I just need a little Non-addictive Cocaine.  I'm going to the gym to get my heart rate up so I need to get my heart rate up first.  I think there's supposed to be an element of discomfort when you exercise.  It's not a party, for chrissake, it's exercise.

Anyway, I feel sorry for the guy.  I still love him but I don't think his future is especially bright.  He's a controlled dude so he'll probably muddle along in his life, stuck in place, discontented, making the same mistakes over and over.  He has declared an Alcoholics Anonymous hiatus right now.  I'll bet - must be hard using and taking sobriety chips.  He defends his right to use drugs strenuously, backing it with some pretty iffy but substantial research, but ignores my suggestion that he bring it up at a meeting as a topic.  I'll bet that doesn't sound like a good idea.

Wait a minute . . . I did that! 

A Work In Progress

"I think the important thing is caring about someone.  It's being by themselves that does people in, makes them old and bitter."  Thomas Tryon

I make a distinction between solitude and isolation.  I'm a quiet person who doesn't like people as a general rule.  People are idiots and they don't approach my level of perfection; thusly, they aren't worth my time.  They should go away from me.  They should quickly move somewhere else.

OK, even for me, Mr. Sarcastic, that sounds pretty grim.  I love everyone, I like most people, and some of you I can't stand.  I'm good with that characterization because I'm not under any illusion that I'm all that and a bag of chips to everyone who walks this earth.  Frankly, this wisdom, slowly acquired, has been important to my serenity.  I do my best to be a Nice Person and then allow everyone else to come to their own conclusions.  Like the dude who called me out about a perceived slight in the meeting a few days ago - if he hadn't approached me and heard my explanation he would likely have left thinking I was an asshole or at least more of an asshole than I already am.

"Imagine how little good music there would be if, for example, a conductor refused to play Beethoven's Fifth Symphony on the ground that his audience may have heard it before."  A.P. Herbert

As a man with introverted tendencies I enjoy my own company.  I talk to myself instead of to real, live people who are right in front of me all the time.  I'm very interesting.  Usually, I'm talking to someone I know who isn't actually with me or I speak in front of groups that I'm not in front of, in reality.  SuperK doesn't cut me any slack on this justification, rightly pointing out that if no one is around then you're talking to yourself, that imagining in your own head that someone is there when no one is there doesn't mean that you're not losing it.

"I can hear you in there!  Who are you talking to?  There's no one in there!" she'll occasionally shout when she hears me mumbling and declaiming and preaching by myself in the bathroom.  There are people there - she just can't see them.  I don't do what they tell me to do, ordinarily.  They're pretty good listeners, recognizing my brilliance and insight, and decline to give me instructions.

When we hear the same things, we can tune in instead of tuning out.  We can listen to each word as if it were the first time, feeling all the feelings and leaving our minds open to new insights.  I'm not good at this.  I hate the same old stories; I hate people who have a simple thing to say but stretch it out forever by providing tons of useless details - the "I said this and then they said that and then . . . " etc. etc. etc. kinds of stories; and I hate it when other people are talking to me when in reality they're just talking to themselves.  Just because you think it's interesting doesn't mean I think it's interesting.  Read the room, for chrissake.  

A work in progress.

No One Is Paying Attention To Me

 I showed up late for the meeting this morning.  It wasn't an oversight or because of car or traffic problems.  My alarm worked fine.  I didn't sleep through my alarm.  I was simply enjoying sitting in my office in my lounge wear and I left late.  It was all quite deliberate.  I know it's important to hear How It Works and the Traditions being read before the meeting but after seven or eight thousand times I figure I can miss it not and then without losing my mind.  Friday is a 12 & 12 study and we're on the Traditions right now.  I personally  love reading the Traditions - the firm bedrock on which good meetings are built - but they can be a tough share for a lot of people, especially newcomers.  Consequently, there were a bunch of long silences so I violated one of my rules - You Don't Get To Share If You Can't Get Here On Time.  Frankly, I violate rules all the time.  Rules are not for me.  Rules are for suckers and losers.

I said this, more or less: "Normally I don't share if I'm late but what can I tell ya?  I'm gonna share anyway."  After the meeting this dude comes over - not a new dude but sort of new and a little off center in a general sense, if you know what I mean.  I like him well enough and we get along fine.  He says: "Look, I gotta call you out here.  I thought that was pretty harsh what you did to that dude today."

I said something snappy like: "Huh?" or maybe it was "Whuzzit?"  It's not often that I get tongue-tied but my tongue was tied.  

"I don't know what you mean," I finally replied, cleverly.

"What you said to that guy who showed up late.  I don't think it's cool to call someone out like that in the meeting."

Oh, it all became clear.

"I was talking about me.  I was the guy who showed up late."

He was very apologetic.  In fact, he said that he didn't even know that I was late which shows, once again, just how little other people are paying attention to me.  I was not offended.  I told him: "Look, if I'm acting like an asshole I want to hear about it.  Half the time when I'm being a jerk I don't realize it."  I did check with a couple of my friends who were quite clear what I was doing, just to make sure.

Tomorrow I think I'll get there early.  See if that dude notices.

Alcoholics = Children

More from the good doctor . . . . 

 "I often ask people if they really think that lack of understanding on the child's (please substitute 'alcoholic') part is the problem.  Do they believe that one more lecture will prove persuasive?  Or does the problem reside in the coercive, repetitive, and critical nature of the relationship?  It is, of course, always easier to keep doing what we're used to, even if it's evidently not working for us.  The primary goal of parenting (please substitute 'sponsoring') is to convey to our children (please substitute 'fellows') a sense that it is possible to be happy in an uncertain world, to give them hope.  We do this, of course, by example more than by anything we say to them." 

I love this kind of stuff, this basic psychology stuff.  We're unusual in A.A. because our problems are solved - or obscured, obliterated - when we drink and use but it is quite clear that these personality problems, these aberrations, are not unique to alcoholics.  The good doctor is referring to interactions he has had with adult parents who are having behavioral problems with their children, except he's trying to get them to see that the problem is with them, and not with the children.

Boy, does this sound like our experience with drunks trying to get sober?  Do any of them ever do anything we say?  Do they start to do it if we keep saying the same thing over and over?  More and more loudly?  Using a threatening or hectoring or judgmental tone?  Not our job.  I always say that tell other alcoholics what I've done and encourage them to listen to lots of other voices explaining what they've done and then to go on ahead and do what they think is best.  I'm not in the business of running anyone else's life.  I'm barely in the business of running my own life.  Mostly, I'm trying to avoid getting run over by the consequences of my actions.

Steal or Illicitly Remove

More from the good doctor.  Although he's talking about the general public, man, is this spot-on for alcoholics.

 "How are we inclined to react when told what to do?  For most of us, resentment progressing to obstinacy is the most common response.  We are not obedient people.  Most of us are descendants of those who undertook dangerous voyages in pursuit of freedom and self-determination, and we're willing to sacrifice a great deal in defense of these ideas.  We are genetically programmed to question authority.  As with most things in life, our expectations are generally realized."

Take: Reach for and hold; capture or gain possession of by force; dispossess someone of something;  steal or illicitly remove; cheat someone of something.

I believe that love is an opening of the heart.  I am at a place in my spiritual life where I am open to the possibility that I will love someone from the moment I meet them.  I generally understand that I won't like them, of course, but I figure I'm going to love them at some point so I might as well get on with it.  I embrace this love in all its forms and iterations, from romantic type love to bro-love, love between boys and girls of all ages and orientations and marital status, cherishing the oldest friends I have, present in my day to day life or not, basking in the knowledge that every person I meet is someone that at some point I'm going to be able to say: "Love you, dude" or "Love you, sweetie."  Powerful words.  Powerful words when you mean them and I don't say them unless I mean them, and I'm not afraid that this feeling might diminish or fade or evaporate over time.  Such is life.

There's a retired salon owner who lives in my community who made a promise to the park management many years ago that he would cut the hair of any resident for a flat $10 fee if the park would provide him with a room where he could set up shop.  He's a nice man, someone who radiates kindness and good energy.  When we were on our last trip to Spain he exchanged some emails with SuperK where he revealed that he was a member of a specific religious group and they came at a time that she found very helpful.  I got my hair cut yesterday - I give him a twenty because this is still far below standard barbering rates locally and also because I appreciate the service he's providing to the community, where some residents are on a fixed income and no doubt appreciate the bargain fare - and we lapsed into a long conversation about goodness and spirituality and the energy we throw off as we walk through life.  What a great conversation!  People who are trying to grow in their belief in a power greater than themselves and who are trying to be of service to others are of a similar ilk.  I didn't criticize his specific beliefs with the rules and regulations and he didn't dismiss my non-denominational approach to spirituality.

This dude doesn't need the money and he's in his mid-70s so standing on a hard floor cutting hair is likely not the easiest thing to do but he's giving back.  He's not taking.  He's through  with taking.

We should all  be through with the taking.

Can you believe those primary definitions of take?  Whew.  Brutal.

Some Stuff

 KK and I did some shopping at our local outlet mall yesterday.  Outlet malls are great - they sell the exact same stuff in stores at a "discount" that you can easily duplicate on line.  No matter - I needed some shoes and I find it impossible to get something that fits my big, dumb, misshapen feet without actually trying on the shoes.  At the first store I think we cheered the morose teenagers manning the register with our cheerful insouciance.  At the second store I remembered the clerk from a previous visit - I hijacked her music system by saying: "Alexa, play some Black Sabbath."  It actually worked to general hilarity.

I get away with abusing people in A.A. because I'm impervious to any and all incoming abuse.  If you think I'm an idiot go ahead and say so - I'll probably cheerfully agree.

One of the most contented regular members of our group lost a leg in a traffic accident several years ago - he was supervising a crew of landscapers working in a traffic median when an out of control truck hit him and several co-workers.  He told me he remembered looking down and thinking: "Where is my leg?"  I ask him how he's feeling often because he never complains - he'll tell me that some days he has phantom leg pain in the leg that's missing and some days there's a lot of rubbing and chafing where the prosthetic connects to the stump that remains.  That dude is spiritual.

Actions V Words

One of my good friends in Alcoholics Anonymous is a woman who has a job training young people how to be hair stylists.  She took this job not too long ago with a great deal of gratitude and enthusiasm.  Almost immediately her daughter - who lives in Norway - got quite ill so my friend took a leave of absence in order to spend three months with her daughter and her newborn grandson.  She asked for and her company graciously permitted her to leave even though this cost them the tuition money paid by the class she was slated to teach.  Now that she's back she has offered to fill in for any of her co-workers who teach on Saturday -  normally her day off - when they have a conflict.  She doesn't want to do this, to be honest about it.  She works all week and values her time off.  But she does it.

I am of the opinion that most people who enter The Rooms have the emotional I.Q. of a five year old, and I'm probably being generous here.  One characteristic of five year olds is that they don't often listen to what you say but they pay close, silent attention to what you do.  Talk is cheap.  Anybody can talk.  Talk, talk, talk.  Actions speak louder than words.  All of us know members who  sound great in meetings but exhibit some gaping holes in their spiritual lives.  I'm not judging here - sobriety is hard, a spiritual life is hard, living is hard - but if you're struggling with relationships maybe you shouldn't talk to the guy who has been married five times, no matter how good he sounds when he's talking about relationships.  There's a new guy in our meeting who I think is going to make it.  He doesn't talk much but listens with a fearsome intensity.  He occasionally compliments me on my presence and behavior but never on what I've said.

Reminds me of my early sobriety in Chicago when I almost always had a coffee commitment.  These were three month commitments and they were for large meetings that had both regular and decaf - huge tureens of coffee that took a long time to brew - and people got to the meeting a half hour early to shoot the shit, which meant I had to get there an hour early.  I was an important guy - working as a glorified typist - so I was often resentful about the fact that I was losing a lot of free time which I could have been doing some important shit.  I was never thanked for making coffee.  In fact, it wasn't unusual for someone to bitch about the quality of the coffee.  And these were usually the people who hung around and talked after the meeting which meant I had to hang around until everyone left and I could empty and scour the pots. 

My mouth was sarcastic, my thoughts were venomous, but my actions were good.

Crepuscular Reflections, In Reverse

 My morning meeting brought these fleeting thoughts to mind as I was actually listening to people when they shared instead of thinking about myself . . . 

We are wrecked when we enter The Rooms.  We are done.  Alcohol, which had ceased working a long time ago, was no longer a solution.  We finally knew this.

We recognize a kindred spirit pretty quickly if we're really alcoholic.  It's clear that we were among like-minded people.

Children of Chaos, we were finally in a situation where no one was telling us what to do.  How we HATE being told what to do.  When we're told what to do we don't do it, often gleefully, balefully, preferring to do the exact opposite thing purely out of spite.

We find out in a hell of a hurry that our time of pointing the finger (not that finger, the index finger, get your mind out of the gutter) at people, places, and things was over.  We are told to concentrate on the three fingers pointing right back at us and at the thumb, pointed up at heaven or God or whatever, just up for once in our miserable lives.

Seaweed Goes Down in a Double Digit Defeat

 Ah, Problems of Prosperity.  How I love to talk about Problems of Prosperity.  I don't talk about it to very many people, of course, and honestly I usually write about it because it's so fucking embarrassing to say: "My goddamn Ferrari's in the shop again" or "The service in First Class was just deplorable."  At the start of this wondrous journey having enough money to pay my rent wasn't always assured.

Anyway, on my most recent trip I prepaid for a rental car.  The plane was late so the rental company informed us that if the reservation isn't made directly with them then they cancel it, so they canceled it.  They did have cars, but not the one I had reserved, although they had many cars exactly like the one I had reserved.  So I decided, logically, to rent one of these identical but unreserved cars.  I wondered about an upgrade and was given a price somewhat higher than the standard car I had originally reserved.  Being a man who lives deeply in his own mind - said mind befogged by a long flight and jet lag - I had forgotten about the prepaid business.  What I was being shown, apparently, was the cost of the upgrade.  I did not realize this.  No where on the invoice was the prepaid amount listed, logged, revealed, or tallied or I would have politely declined the upgrade.  

Halfway through the trip we called to reserve the car for an additional month.  The invoice that was emailed to me was almost exactly twice the amount of the original invoice, which made sense to me as I believed it to be the cost for the entire two month period on a reconfigured invoice.  Stupidly, I did not look at the dates on the invoice which would have revealed the shocking truth of the matter; namely, that I should have driven the car immediately back to the airport and gotten something much, much cheaper because the amount I was staring at, stupidly, was only for the last month.

I called the rental company and they replied, more or less, by saying: "Fuck off."  So I called my credit card company to dispute the charge and they took somewhat longer in their reply which boiled down was a somewhat more elegant way of saying: "Fuck off."

So who's at fault here?  I feel like I was hustled by a cagey gate agent.  Maybe, maybe not.  The fact of the matter is that I was very casual about a money transaction and learned a lesson.  Frankly, because the two invoices pretty clearly showed I was shit out of luck I decided to dispute the charge just to fuck with the rental car company on the off chance I was hustled.  You know - make them do some work for their extra money.  They because I was pretty annoyed at all the fuck offs so I spitefully asked the credit card agent to transfer me to whoever could cancel my credit card but in my defense I did hang up before the transfer went through.  The card gives me 5% cash back for all travel-related expenses instead of the 3% from my second best card.  If it was 1% more I would have let my spite run wild but that 2% can add up to some not inconsequential money so I'ma let it ride.

Ferraris in the shop, indeed.  Read the goddamn invoice, son.  Learned a lesson.  Renewed my gratitude at being blessed with a  nice financial backstop.  Give it up.  

Europcar 17 - Seaweed 3.