Heaven or Hell? Your Choice

"The dream you are living is your creation.  It is your perception of reality that you can change at any time.  You have the power to create hell, and you have the power to create heaven.  Why not dream a different dream?  Why not use your mind, your imagination, and your emotions to dream heaven?

Imagine living your life without the fear of being judged by others.  You no longer rule your behavior according to what others may think about you.  You are no longer responsible for anyone's opinion.  You have no need to control anyone, and no one controls you, either.  Imagine living without the fear of loving and not being loved.  Imagine living your life without being afraid to take a risk and to explore life.  Imagine that you live yourself just the way you are."

You Have Defects. Deal With It.

"We cannot whip what we cannot recognize.  Symptoms are not the problem.  They are only evidence of it.  The roots go deeper than surface remedies."  In Toltec Speak.

". . . our decision could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves that had been blocking us.  Our liquor was but a symptom.  So we had to get down to causes and conditions."   In A.A. Speak

It's unpleasant looking at my defects.  I'd rather deny them or avoid them, bury them deep down inside me where they can eat my guts in clever silence, or - better yet - pretend my defects are really assets, than to look at them.  Profoundly uncomfortable.

Profoundly Happy

Profound:  Felt or experienced very strongly or in an extreme way; very great or intense 

"But today, in well-matured A.A.’s, these distorted drives have been restored to something like their true purpose and direction. We no longer strive to dominate or rule those about us in order to gain self-importance. We no longer seek fame and honor in order to be praised. When by devoted service to family, friends, business, or community we attract widespread affection and are sometimes singled out for posts of greater responsibility and trust, we try to be humbly grateful and exert ourselves the more in a spirit of love and service. True leadership, we find, depends upon able example and not upon vain displays of power or glory. 

Still more wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful and profoundly happy. Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do we wish to be. Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God’s help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God’s scheme of things—these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes. True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God."  Step 12, P. 124, The 12 & 12 

Sometimes the elegance and beauty and profound insight of our literature overwhelms me.  So, in these cases, I can't just change a few words here and there and pretend that the thoughts are mine. I just have to cut and paste.  What an ending to this book!  Reminding me again that there are many, many Promises in our literature, and this is doozy of a collection.

Freedom From Fear

"When our circumstances happened to be good, we no longer dreaded a change for the worse, for we had learned that these troubles could be turned into great values.  It did not matter too much what our material condition was, but it did matter what our spiritual condition was.  We found that freedom from fear was more important than freedom from want."  Step 12

Toltec wisdom . . . 

"The Angel of Death can teach us to live every day as if it is the  last day  of our  lives, as if there may be no tomorrow.  That is the way I see life, that is what the Angel of Death taught me - to be completely open, to know that there is nothing to be afraid of.  This is what, in the Toltec way, the Angel of Death teaches us.  The Angel of Death comes to us and says,'You see everything that exists here is mine; it is not yours.  Your house, your spouse, your children, your car, your career, your money - everything is mine and I can take it away when I want to, but for now you can use it.' "

When someone I know in recovery is wrapped around the axle about a financial situation I usually say - after gauging the situation carefully, because this comment can be misconstrued as piling on if I'm not delicate  - something along the lines of "Well, it's all God's money.  If he wants some of it he's going to take some of it.  If he wants you to have more he'll give you the opportunity to have more."  I need to hear myself say this, for me, as a reminder that it's all going to go at some point, all of it, everything I have on this Vale of Tears is going to go, so I do my best to appreciate and enjoy all of the blessings I have.

I'm reminded of the thoughts of an emergency worker who spent several hours recovering the bodies of small children who were killed in a bomb explosion after their parents had dropped them off a day care.  He wondered how he left his house that morning.  Were the last words he spoke to his kids kind and loving, or was he annoyed at something insignificant?  I hope that when my time on this Vale of Tears comes to an end that everyone has a smile on their face, courtesy of some loving thing I shared with them.

"Of course I treat the people I love with love because this may be the last day that I can tell you how much I love you.  I don't know if I am going to see you again.  The love that makes me happy is the love that I can share with you.  Why do I need to deny that I love you?  It is not important if you love me back.  I may die tomorrow or you may die tomorrow.  What makes me happy now is to let you know how much I love you."

Reminded also of this ancient Persian Proverb: "We come into the world crying while everyone around us is smiling - may be exit this world smiling while everyone around us is crying."

Restraint

"It is the emotions that control the behavior of the human, not the human who controls the emotions.  When we lose control we say things that we don't want to say, and do things that we don't want to do.  To refrain is to hold the emotions and to express them in the right moment, not before, not later."

Feel like some Step work?  "Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen."    "The way this restraint paid off was startling."   "For we can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic."   "Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint."

First objective!  Nothing pays off like restraint!

It's Not Them - It's You

Forgiveness is the intentional and voluntary process by which one who may have felt initially wronged, victimized, harmed or hurt goes through a process in changing feelings and attitude regarding a given offender for his/her actions, and overcomes the impact of the offense, flaw or mistake including negative emotions such as resentment or a desire for vengeance.  Theorists differ in the extent to which they believe forgiveness also implies replacing the negative emotions with positive attitudes (i.e. an increased ability to tolerate the offender), or requires reconciliation with the offender.

Man, ouch, and this one sticks in my craw sometimes because there are a lot of irritating people out there who behave in ways that really stick in my craw.

BTW, a craw is an area in a bird's throat that can harbor food so it can be digested more efficiently.  It was also, apparently, a post-industrial metal band from Cleveland active in the late '90s.

It is contrary to my view of life that I should tolerate intolerable actions directed to me or at me, either directly or obliquely.  My human response is to seek revenge of some kind.  It is not to overlook the slight and let it go, forever, and quickly at that.

Here are the Toltecs again: "We must forgive those we feel have wronged us, not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because we love ourselves so much we don't want to keep paying for the injustice.  Forgiveness is the only way to heal.  That's the beginning of the free human.  Forgiveness is the key."

Step Five: "Often it was while working on this Step . . . that we first felt truly able to forgive others no matter how deeply we felt they had wronged us.

St. Francis: "He thought it better . . . to be forgiven than to forgive."

Step Eleven: "It is by forgiving that one is forgiven."

It's not them - it's you.

New Guy Blues

We went around the room today.  As luck would have it there were a coven of new guys immediately to the right of the leader so we got some new guy talk.  Side Note: We have five new guys named Brian attending our meeting right now and I am not making that up.  All under three months.  They've started identifying themselves as Brian #1 or Bryan #5 and the like.  The first Brian today drank briefly recently, starting with some nips from a bottle of Chivas Regal and - just like that! - a nickname is born.  He is a busy young attorney with two small children at home so he's got a lot on his plate.  Yesterday he found himself in line at Starbucks behind one of the ubiquitous Slow Order People - you know the type: they act as if they've never been to a Starbucks before.  It's Starbucks!  Order your goddamn coffee!  Late to the office he was then stuck in a malfunctioning elevator for an hour.  Sitting there, fuming, as the fire department tried to unstuck him.

Pray for patience and God puts you in long lines.

The next guy was a postal worker who got his second DUI six months ago and he lost his license.  The good news is that the post office didn't fire his ass immediately - the bad news is since he doesn't have a license he can't drive a mail truck so he's been shifted to walking routes exclusively.  He's losing some weight, I'll tell you that.

Pray that you don't go to jail when you get your second DUI and your ass is gonna be doin' some walkin'.

The next guy was recently in a car accident which wasn't his fault but this hasn't stopped the other driver from suing him while also claiming he was injured as a result of the accident.  He wants to . . . you know . . . actually injure the other guy now.

Pray for tolerance and God puts you around intolerable people.

The next guy had to accompany his wife to a wedding where there was a lot of drinking.  He didn't drink but he was mad at the world for putting him in a situation where he had to tolerate a lot of drinking while not drinking himself.

Pray for a release from the obsession to drink and God puts you around people who show you what you were like when you were drinking yourself and you see that you weren't nearly as much fun as you thought you were.  In fact, you were a pain in the ass.

The queue got to me with time for a short share left.  I indicated that I wanted to cede my time to a new woman who had her hand up despite the fact that she definitely didn't have her hand up.  She shared about taking a trip to Japan where not drinking is sort of weird - this is a culture where social drinking is part of social life - and she had to sort of grit her teeth and get through it . . . which she did.

Pray to be left alone so you can just listen in a meeting and God puts you in a meeting with me, the Eternal Tormenter of New People.  What could I have said that would have topped that share?

Sometimes we speak from experience; sometimes we talk to get something painful or frustrating off of our chests; and sometimes we just need to allow other people to get to know us a little bit.  I mean do you seriously think that when I talk at a meeting I have anything worthwhile to say and do you think this stops me from talking?

The key is finding out what the lesson is.  There's a lesson there.

Master Manipulator

I have a friend in my morning meeting who was quite dismissive of anything that she didn't agree with . . . which was everything I said, more or less.  I learned quickly not to suggest that she do anything that she didn't want to do . . .  which was everything, once again.  When I did the pushback was immediate.  My response to this was that I could barely keep a straight face listening to her justifications.  One time she said: "Nah, that wouldn't work for me" when I wasn't even giving any  advice - all I did was share what I did in a similar situation.  I didn't even say that it would work for her although I probably implied that it would.  I'm sneaky that way.  I'm a Master Manipulator like most recovering alcoholics.  How do I get you to do what I want you to do while making you think it's what you wanted to do, anyway, and the idea was yours to begin with?

Here's another example of our Founders repeating themselves because they know we're not really paying attention - this is from two contiguous pages in Step Twelve: ". . . still more spiritual development."  ". . . as we grow spiritually . . . "  ". . . when we are willing to place spiritual growth first . . . "  ". . . if we go on growing . . . "  "As we made spiritual progress . . . "

Here's another interesting fact: Step Twelve has three parts - Carrying the message, experiencing a spiritual awakening, and practicing these spiritual principles in our daily lives.  This, our longest chapter in the 12 & 12, runs twenty pages.  Care to guess how many pages are devoted to each part?  Two on carrying the message; three on the spiritual awakening (which, in fairness, has been flogged half to death in most of the preceding Steps); and fifteen on practicing these principles in our daily life.  Fifteen!  Three times as many pages as the first two combined!

John Ramey, Esq. RIP

"But when our self-will had driven everyone 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."  Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

When I was trying to pull myself together after getting booted from Optometry College I lived for a year in a house with a couple of guys who were attending college if what you could call what they were doing "attending college."  One of them had quite a nice illegal pot hothouse in his walk-in closet and didn't ever seem to go to classes or do any other college stuff.  The other guy - John Ramey - was the poster child for alcoholic destruction.  He was not the smartest man I've ever met and he was morbidly obese, due in part to his short stature but mostly, I surmise, because he drank huge quantities of beer and never moved out of his chair.  I hung around with these men but particularly John.  I cannot imagine what we could have talked about.  He liked my style of hard rock and matched me beer for beer and bong hit for bong hit, but what else could we have discussed?  Picasso's Blue Period?  The threat of barbarian invasions taking place at the same time the structure of the new religion - Christianity - was destabilizing the Roman Empire?  Quinoa versus brown rice?  Quantum physics or organic chemistry?

The above quote from The Big Book has always stuck with me.  At the end, before I began discarding all human activity, meaningful to trivial, in favor of drinking alone, all by myself, I had reached the stage where the only requirement for companionship  I had was that you drank and used like I did.  All relationships were predicated on this fact.  And I'm taking great pains not to judge myself too important or smart or talented to spend time with any "lesser" human beings; only that all I wanted was to have the occasional person to drink heavily with.

The Nosy Neighbor

You may remember the very nice man who so bored the shit out of me that rather than continuing to allow him to join me - over and over and over - on my beach walk and bore the shit out of me I began driving several miles out of my way to walk - alone, all by myself, no one else around - and save myself the irritation of his self-contained droning on and on and on?

Well, he moved and doesn't come to the meeting very much anymore, except on Monday when he's the meeting secretary.  He'll take his dog for a walk afterwards where I'll often run into him.  Today, while I was petting his dog - who I honestly find a lot more entertaining than him - he told me a long tale of a nosy neighbor that lives next door to him at his new place and the great lengths he's going to avoid this guy  .  .  .

I'm never sure who's learning the lesson in these interactions except to say that it's always me.  Do you know how badly I wanted to interrupt this guy and point out the blazing hypocrisy of his screed.  He wasn't really upset about it, reacting in a good-natured way, but he clearly didn't want to . . .  you know . . . have to talk with him or listen to him or walk with him on the beach.  I'm struck by how righteous my evasive behavior is with Boring Beach Guy and how righteous I feel when I notice the exact same behavior in someone else.  The lessons I learn and how The Teacher imparts this wisdom to me!  I think: "Wow, it must be this obvious to someone else when I blather on about behavior in someone else that annoys me when I'm displaying the exact same behavior."

On Outrage!!

 Outrage is a funny emotion.  On the surface, it seems like a negative, unpleasant emotion.  After all, its root is the basic emotion of anger.  However, humans are a complicated ape.  Our emotion systems evolved largely to help us obtain and maintain strong social standing within small-scale communities, as doing so was evolutionarily adaptive for our ancestors.  Expressing outrage about the behavior of others, often in the form of virtue signaling, seems to partly function to elevate the status of the person expressing the outrage.  And to the extent that this strategy may be effective, we can understand why it is often the case that expressing outrage often makes people feel good rather than bad.

Understanding the evolutionary roots of outrage may well prove moral outrage often is less about outing someone else for problematic behavior than it is about inflating one's own sense of self by buffering threats to one's own moral identity.  Virtue-signaling-based outrage seems to be much more about sending out signals about oneself.  It is essentially putting others down in an (often unconscious) effort to raise oneself up.

Screaming is not only a perfectly valid form of release, but a healthy one, too.  Screaming creates a chemical reaction that is similar to the one you get when you exercise - you get a dopamine hit and some endorphins flowing.

Jughead Jones Reads The Four Agreements

I've been talking to this new guy who's been attending our meeting.  First of all, I'm damn glad I'm no longer a new guy.  Secondly, you can say just about  anything you want to a new guy because he doesn't have the confidence or experience to counter what you're saying.  Finally, I'm trying to make a point of some kind here . . .

He's also reading the book "The Four Agreements."  First of all, I don't know why his sponsor has given him this difficult book to read in his first six months.  Give the second grader "Archie and Jughead Go to Band Camp," not "War and Peace."  Secondly, it's none of my business what his sponsor is asking him to read.  I'm not keeping anyone sober.  Finally, it's a pretty damn good book.

On a side note I bet you didn't know that the full name is Jughead Jones and it isn't really specified anywhere that Jughead is a pejorative name.  It sure sounds like a less than complimentary name to for a guy wearing sort of spiked-out half-crown half-porkpie hat.  He comes across as pretty cool and laid-back but unlucky with the ladies . . . if you know what I mean.  Now that I think about it Jughead Jones sounds like a Yale linebacker from  1943.

He's reading the book in chunks, big chunks; my A.A. friend, not Jughead.  I have to shake my head knowingly when I see someone attack recovery in this fashion.  It's not a sprint, it's a slog.  This graduate level spirituality text doesn't lend itself to quick reading and it's not going anywhere, anyhow.  I do empathize with the desire to go fast, go faster, go damn fast and get it finished.  If I passed anything along at all it's the hint that he should take a big, deep breath and try to absorb what he's reading.  I usually add that when I write down what I'm thinking about something it serves the double purpose of cementing those thoughts in my consciousness and uncovering the absurdity of some of the things that make sense when they're alone, in my own head.

If you insist on driving ninety you'll get there sooner but miss all the great scenery along the way plus you might run over a rabbit.  

Thwack!

"Awareness is always the first step because if you are not aware, there is nothing you can change  If you are not aware that your mind is full of wounds and emotional poison, you cannot begin to clean and heal the wounds and you will continue to suffer."

A friend of mine with a solid twenty-five years of sobriety asked me recently about my daily or Tenth Step inventory (ies).  She has been struggling a little bit in her recovery program as in: "I'm sick of going to A.A. meetings."  I can not be more sympathetic.  I figure I've been to seven or eight thousand meetings in my thirty-eight years which probably means - given my proclivity to lie - that I've been to five or six thousand.  In any case, a lot of meetings.  Getting sick of meetings is part and parcel of long-term sobriety.  I called her the next day to follow up on her request.  She answered the phone and said she was meeting with her sponsor.  I said I didn't give a shit and she should ditch her sponsor and talk to me instead.  She was laughing as she hung the phone up in my ear.  This is as it should have been and - not only was I not surprised, given the tone and timbre of our relationship - I laughed for a bit myself.  That's the last I heard of it although she has been back attending regularly and with a much more relaxed attitude.

Does anyone else miss that satisfying Thwack! that used to accompany the slamming down of the phone in someone else's ear?  All cell phone hang-ups sound the same . . . 

My daily inventory is not the slog that it used to be and this is because my behavior is generally  pretty decent and I am not making this up.  I don't have a lot of bad behavior to clean-up anymore.  If I don't behave well I try to correct things immediately.  I don't lie in bed reviewing my behavior before drifting off to sleep and often think: "Wow, I need to clean that mess up."  Fewer messes = Fewer clean-ups on Aisle 3 and Quicker Clean-Ups = Fewer Foetid, Rotting Messes to clean-up the next day.

I'm seeing how this works more and more clearly  . . . 

The Frog Blog

Some dude shared the frog story at a meeting this week.  You know the one - if you slowly turn up the heat on a frog sitting in a pan of water it will just sit there until it gets boiled to death.

Is this story an allegory?  Or a parable?  Or a fable?  Or total bullshit?  Answer at the end of the blog.

I understand the point the dude was trying to make with the boiling frog story: that the damage alcohol does to the alcoholic is slow and cumulative so we often don't try to get the train stopped until it's awfully, awfully late.

Allegory:  A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden one, typically a moral or political one.

Parable:  A short, simple story that teaches or explains an idea, especially a moral or religious one.

Analogy:  A comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.

Total: Complete; absolute.

Bullshit:  Nonsense, lies, or exaggeration; foolish, insincere, exaggerated, or boastful talk.

So here's the deal.  Frogs have been around for at least 200 million years.  Some experts believe that they have been walking the earth for 250 million years.  Humans have been around for maybe 300 thousand years so I'm putting my money on the frogs.  Yeah, like you get to hang in there for 200 million years by allowing yourself to slowly boil to death.  I don't think so.  Humans are more likely to get boiled to death.  I see no evidence that we're smart enough to last another million years.

Genus Frogs!

From the Toltec Today Gazette:  "The freedom we are looking for is the freedom to be ourselves, to express ourselves.  But  if we look at our lives we will see that most of the time we do things just to please others, just to be accepted by others, rather than living our lives to please ourselves."

I initially thought this sounded a little selfish but I believe the point is that trying to live in a way that others want you to live isn't going to be very satisfying in the long run.

YOU, Dude

I'm reading Step Eleven in the 12 & 12, amused at the different colors of ink and highlighters I've used over the years, when I notice that on a couple of pages devoted to the prayer part of prayer, meditation, and self-examination, that these have caught my attention over many readings.  See if you can pick up on a thread:

"We ask for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."

"Even so, when making specific requests, it will be well to add this qualification . . .  'if it be Thy will.' "

"They will, not mine, be done."   

". . . permit us to return to the surest help of all -  our search for God's will, not our own, in the moment of stress."

Sort of the summing up of this idea that my will is just fine until it gets in the way of God's will is the reminder that we're prone to a "self-serving demand of God for replies."

I'm getting a thread here, a theme, aren't you?    

Last couple of pages in Step Eleven: "In A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question.  They are matters of knowledge and experience.  All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their own.  They have wisdom beyond their usual capability.  We discover that we received guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give to to us on order and on our terms.  We will also report that out of every season of grief or suffering, when the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust, new lessons for living were learned, new resources of courage were uncovered."

This is one of the messages I have finally internalized and am eager to spread: painful things are going to happen to YOU.  YOU, dude.  You are going to suffer physically, mentally, and emotionally and certainly spiritually.  The first trick is recognizing that fact but the really huge trick is understanding that everything is a lesson.  If I don't learn from my pain I'm destined to suffer pain over and over again.

Often in meetings we read a section of the Big Book called The Promises without remembering that "promises" are found all through the literature.   And here's a whopper from Step Eleven: "Perhaps one of the greatest rewards of meditation and prayer is the sense of belonging that comes to us.  We no longer live in a completely hostile world.  We are no longer lost and frightened and purposeless.  (This happens) the moment we catch even a glimpse of God's will . . . "

Do I Have a Stupid Face?

My town has a fair number of homeless people wandering around.  Some of them appear to be ne'er-do-wells but my experience is that a lot are suffering from a variety of mental illnesses and conditions to go along with all of the alcoholism and substance abuse that obviously exists.  I'm not an unsympathetic guy so it makes me pause when I'm asked for money.  I used to either give a buck or two or walk by, with a fixed thousand yard stare.  I didn't feel all that great about either option -  one makes me seem uncaring while the other may simply be channeling money into the local liquor store cash register or local drug dealer pocket.  I am not one of those people overly worried about some scam artist screwing me out of a buck.  I think the truly needy to just lazy quotient is about ten to one so I don't want to deprive someone who's hungry a meal to ensure some joker works me for some of my precious cash.

My technique has evolved so that now I simply ask: "What do you want it for?"  The most common reply is "to get something to eat."  Bus fare is another favorite but food is the big number one.  My response is to offer to buy them something to eat, pointing out a convenience store or nearby coffee shop.  A few people have taken me up on it.  Most haven't.  One woman trolling a Wal-Mart parking lot refused my offer of some bananas: "I don't like bananas."  Yeah, well, I'm not a buffet line.  It's bananas.  I have some bananas.  That's your choice.  Another woman (a belligerent woman) refused my offer to buy her some oatmeal at the Starbucks across the street: "Starbucks don't have no oatmeal."  Starbucks do have some oatmeal but I'm not going to argue with someone who doesn't want no oatmeal.  I'm not crazy about oatmeal, either, but then I have the cash to buy something else.  I think she must have thought I was a waiter taking orders: "Hi, Ma'am, I'm Seaweed and I'll be taking care of you today.  May I recommend the oatmeal? . . . "

Today was my favorite.  A long-haired kid on a stingray bike asked me for a couple of dollars.  "What do you want it for?" I said, right on cue, per usual.  "Get something to eat, maybe a Jack-in-the-Box."  I said: "OK, c'mon inside and I'll buy you something to eat."  He mumbled about a low sodium diet.  I'm no nutritionist but I'm guessing Jack isn't too worried about how much sodium he's packing into each burger.  I kind of shrugged so he mumbled something about a bag of chips - specifying Lay's chips, for fuck's sake.  I must have the kind of stupid face that attracts this style of picky, demanding panhandler.  I went inside and got my Coke and grabbed a bag of chips for this kid.  I did not pay particular attention to the brand of snack and didn't look closely at what kind of salty snack I picked up and I paid absolutely no attention to whether or not I was even buying a chip, figuring that any kind of nutritionally void, high sodium snack would suffice.  I don't work for Door Dash.  I'm not filling orders.  I'll buy anything you want but I'm not picking it out for you.  I exited the store and handed him his snack.  "Thanks" was followed by a quiet "oh."  I turned around, somewhat wearily: "Is there a problem?"  Lays chips.  He wanted Lay's, he asked for Lay's, I disappointed him with some other chip.  Maybe the salt content upset him.  I sighed and looked at him.  "They're okay, they're okay," he said quickly.

I'm being a little snarky here because I'm finding it amusing today.  I've bought a fair number of food items and coffees for people.  I'm not only empathetic I'm sympathetic as well.  People have it hard, they can have it hard.  I talk to these folks and most of them have some bubbles in the think tank.  They're not going to walk into Chase Bank and get hired as a teller.   Dude standing near my car today said: "First off I'm a musician.  Second off I'm an artist.  Third off I'm an electrician" before telling me a convoluted story about seeing a man on an off-ramp with a sign that said "Will Work For Beer" and then throwing a twenty and a pack of cigarettes at him before driving off. 

Toltecs

"The habitual comfort of a familiar place keeps us where we are - even when we are not happy there.  The hurt of leaving something we have grown accustomed to makes it more difficult.  Until we lose the world we once knew, we cannot fully adjust to a new one.  It is a slow, strange unraveling of old ways of thinking and doing."

In A.A. speak: "I'd rather sit in my own shit than get up and move."

"As the Toltecs teach us, the reward is to transcend the human experience of suffering, to become the embodiment of God.  That is the reward."

I ask my Higher Power each morning to help me channel the peace and love that is my experience with spirituality and ooze it out into the carnal world each day.

From time to time a couple of friends travel from one of the outlying villages into my neck of the woods to attend Keep It Complicated.  They're about my age with about the same amount of sobriety.  They get it.  They have it.  It isn't hard to pick out the people that have internalized the spiritual path to recovery that we try to embrace in Alcoholics Anonymous.  They have that sense of ease and comfort and relaxation that most human beings search for.  It's just in their pores at this point.  I can't rattle them with my wry (read: sarcastic) sense of humor.  You can't rattle me anymore.  I don't have anything to do with what you think of me or say to me.  I listen because there is a message in your words and actions that I need to pay heed to from time to time, but mostly it's just your view of my place in the world, which is none of my business.

They remind me of the men and women - but especially men - that were around when I was getting sober.  The men I knew before my A.A. life were in my family and in my church and school.  My dad was distant and when he delivered messages to me it was often with an angry tone, both implied and explicit.  And when teachers and church folk delivered messages to me I was often being pushed to go further or criticized and warned about my behavior, in a manner that was both implied and explicit.  Often the messages were delivered kindly and with my best interests at heart - I'm not blaming the messangers here - but for a kid who was fearful and incredibly hard on himself my reaction was usually: "I'm a failure.  I'm a fuck up.  I'm not worth anything."  This was depressing and caused me to pull further and further into my own mind.  But the men in A.A. told me what they did and how that worked personally and urged me to find my own path forward.  They assured me they didn't know what my path was.  I learned quickly that they weren't going to tell me what to do, going so far as to say they had no idea what I should do and often encouraged me to listen to may different voices in recovery besides theirs because surely I'd find a message that would resonate with me.

Usually I'd argue with them for a bit which never seemed to rattle anyone and then I'd go off by myself and think about what I'd heard.  Those guys always seemed to make pretty good sense after the fact.  "Here's what I did.  This may or may not work for you.  I have no idea what you should do.  Talk to a lot of other people and go to different meetings so you can hear different opinions.  Then find your own path.  Good luck.  We're here to help in any way we can."

They were so fucking infuriating!

Mistakes!

 Mistakes

Three Categories:

Catastrophic - when an outcome can clearly be linked to a decision.  I.E., driving with your eyes closed and having an accident.

Complex - when an outcome is the result of a combination of factors that on their own wouldn’t usually cause a problem.  I.E., having an accident when it’s raining and you have a headache and traffic is heavy and your cell phone rings and you're running late for an appointment . . . 

Managed - when a mistake is made that doesn’t have consequences that are dire.  I.E., instead of quitting your job and selling all your possessions to write a movie script, taking a series of smaller steps - like joining a writing contest - where failure wouldn’t have terrific consequences.

A Shit-Ass Way To Live

"Somewhere among our best times is a lost day.  It was not lost all at once but minute by minute.  We take care to keep out the bigger drain on our time, and let the little irritations, the times of melancholy and doubt steal our common sense and ruin the day."     

In A.A. speak: Don't let the small shit bother you.  And it's all small shit.

"Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward.  If you take action just for the sake of doing it, without expecting a reward, you will find that you enjoy every action you to.  Rewards will come, but you are not attached to the reward."    

I sort of get this, kind of, when we're referencing gainful employment.  I enjoyed the work I did much of the time and sometimes I didn't.  I had bills to pay and instead of pursuing what I love or want to do . . . well, yeah, I had bills to pay.  But the sentiment is strong and healthy, worthy as hell.  I wanted to be a rock star or a second baseman, not a salesguy hawking process control instrumentation.  When I was walking around on the production floor of a manufacturing plant my main goal wasn't to sell anything but instead just not tumble into a piece of machinery that was hot or moving fast or full of sharp edges or all three at once.  I ruined some shoes and some shirts but I still have all my fingers.  I think.  Let me check.  I did find that if I really, honestly tried to solve a problem for a client and in a way that met their budget and didn't cost more than they needed to spend then I felt good about myself, made a little scratch come commission time.  I actually found that my sales numbers went up because people who aren't getting hustled relax and buy what they want which is almost always more than they need.

It's in my personal relationships that this approach to life really pays off emotionally and spiritually.  If everything I do is a quid pro quo then my life is reduced to a business transaction.  I give only if I get is a shit-ass way to live. 

God is Life

"Action is about living life fully.  Inaction is the way that we deny life.  Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are.  Expressing what you are is taking action.  You can have many great ideas in your head, but what makes the difference is the action.  Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward."

Here's Step Eleven in the 12 & 12: "There's nothing the matter with constructive imagination; all sound achievement rests on it."

Lots of time in my head imagining great things while I spent lots of time sitting on a broken down couch watching television.  No longer, dude.  I'm up and running and off like a shot much of the time.

"God is life.  God is life in action.  The best way to say, 'I love you, God,' is to live your life doing your best.  The best way to say, 'Thank you, God,' is by letting go of the past and living in the present moment, right here and now.  Whatever life takes away from you, let it go."

Past Dreams

If you live in a past dream, you don't enjoy what is happening right now because you will always wish it to be different than it is.  We don't need to know or prove anything.  Just to be, to take risks and enjoy your life, is all that matters."

"We can't always do what pleases us.  There will surely be some necessary work that does not excite us."

Before I go to bed each night I brush my teeth, I floss my teeth, and I use a water pik on my teeth.  I don't enjoy any of it.  I'm important and it's a waste of my important time.  "Can't someone else do this?" is another important Homer Simpson-ism but my dental hygienist reminds me that "the payoff is you get to keep your teeth" which is a pretty good payoff in the panoply of payoffs.

"Constant motion seems more important than waiting.  Much depends on whether our waiting is a pause before going on, or an intertia that puts us in a trance."

The Human Touch

When I was getting sober in Indianapolis I developed some friendships with other people who were also early in their sobriety.  One person who stands out was a young woman about my age who spent all day at home with her two young children and got to some meetings after her husband got home from work.  I remember nothing about our conversations, not one specific anecdote.  It just felt anchoring to talk to someone else trying to sort out the shitstorm of their life at the same time I was.  One evening I must have followed up a conversation from a previous meeting when she burst into tears.  I stood there looking at her like she just stepped out of a flying saucer.  I absolutely froze.  My sponsor was nearby and he hustled over and asked her if she wanted a hug which she definitely did.  After a minute he asked her if she wanted a hug from me as well.  She collapsed against me while I stood there like a shipping pallet, an oak tree.  I had no idea how to handle a pretty unremarkable display of human emotion and one that involved touching another person and touching another person of the opposite sex.

I grew up in a conservative, reserved, religious no-bullshit German family.  I can't remember being hugged or touched.  I definitely can't remember anyone telling me they loved me.  It may have happened, especially the second part, but I don't remember it.  It wasn't common, I'll tell you that.  And I'm not being overly critical here of my family, either.  It was a pretty nice, totally ordinary family, typical of the U.S. in the 50s and 60s, and I was fed and watered and bunked down and educated and given a lot of solid moral instruction, all of which puts me in rarefied air when it comes to upbringing.  Just go to some meetings and listen to people talk about the crap they dealt with growing up to gain some perspective.

I touch people a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous.  I believe people like my touch.  No one has taken a swing at me yet.  I touch people when I'm walking by them - a pat on the arm or tap on the head - and I give out hugs - I demand hugs, always careful with women, always asking first if I don't know them well - and sometimes I even kiss the bald dudes on top of their bald heads or sneak up behind someone and give them a big kiss on the cheek.  Nobody does this to me, come to think of it.  Probably I'm a little too proactive so they know what's coming.  This is my thing.  This is what I do and who I am and it's pretty amazing that I've gotten to this place - and this is a relatively recent development for me - after the lessons I learned as a child.

Here's one of those arresting coincidences that pop up whenever I can pop my head out of my ass and pay attention to the world around me.  It's in the book written by a teacher versed in the spirituality of the Toltec civilization and I'll remind you that this Mesoamerican dynasty started sometime around 600 A.D.  That's fourteen centuries ago for the math-challenged among us which means it's old as hell which means that the spiritual stuff we find so instructive today didn't come about in the last fifty years.  Shit is old.

"You express your own divinity by loving yourself and others  It is an expression of God to say, 'Hey, I love you.' "  I ask my own Higher Power each morning that I be able to express my Higher Power's presence to the world in whatever way my Higher Power chooses.  I like to be much bigger than I am using my own will and wiles and intentions and I need outside help to accomplish that.

I See You

SuperK talks about being seen.  We all know what it's like to be somewhere and feel invisible.  It's not great, this feeling, and it's especially unhelpful, this feeling, if you're starting out in Alcoholics Anonymous, not sure if you should be there or want to be there, even, and then being ignoredor glossed over.  I take great pride in my attention to everyone that shows up at my regular Keep It Complicated meeting.  I make it my business to include everyone in the group.  It's not unusual for an individual to rebuff this attention - no, not rebuff, more brush it off, brush through it - and that's okay by me.  As a general rule nobody is thrilled to show up at their first few meetings and many of us are just looking for a reason, any reason, to justify not coming back.  I stand at the door like a goofy prison guard and make sure everyone at least gets a "how ya doin'?" as they exit the room.  I camp out in the kitchen before the meeting because almost everyone comes in there for some coffee before the meeting.  I have a habit of calling on people who are new or who have identified as visitors even when I'm not . . . you know . . . in any way, shape, or form authorized to do this.  I don't have to be chairing the meeting, either.  Sometimes I'll say "I think Bob has his hand up" or something along those lines, putting some man or woman who definitely does not have their hand up on the hot seat.  Nobody has told me to stop doing it.  I probably wouldn't stop doing it anyhow but at least I'd know I was irritating someone which would probably encourage me to keep doing rather than to cease and desist.

There's a new woman who started attending, arriving late and sitting on the outside of the circle, never talking, may have some mental illness issues.  Very tentative, very diffident in her actions and her demeanor.  Well, you know, she can not escape me.  The other day she came back into the kitchen as a few of us were cleaning up post-meeting and said she knew she needed to get a sponsor and asked me about Jan, a woman I know pretty well, because she raises her hand when the secretary asks that anyone willing to be a sponsor identify.  I hustled out into the room and interrupted a conversation Jan was having with a friend and introduced her to the new woman.  

You know, I see the new woman.  I can imagine after a fashion how she's struggling getting involved.  This was a thing I could do.

Do Your Best

"If you try too hard to do  more than your best, you will spend more energy than is needed and in the end your best will not be enough."

There's a fable I've always liked about doing the best you can and learning to be satisfied with that effort.  A novice tells a master that he meditates for four hours a day and wonders how long he has to do this to become enlightened.  When the master replies "If you do this you should be cool in around ten years" the novice tells the master he's going to meditate for eight hours a day to speed things up.  "Now how long will it take me to become enlightened?"  The master says: "Ummmm . . . about twenty years."  The novice says something along the lines of WTF kind of math is that?  Here's the thing, says the master:  If you meditate that much you'll start to feel bored and irritated and you'll forget that we're supposed to live life, to enjoy life, to find joy in life, not engage in a grim death march of forced meditation.  Do your best and enjoy your life.  

I have an ability to make almost anything into a grim death march.  I can ruin even the most pleasant things by overdoing them and overdoing them perfectly.

Here's Alcoholics Anonymous' take on the issue of spiritual growth found in the 12 & 12: "It has been well said that 'almost the only scoffers at prayer are those who never tried it enough.'  We will be comforted and assured that our own destiny in this realm will be secure for so long as we try, however falteringly, to find and do the will of our own Creator."  Not the Creator - our own Creator.

The Terrible Need

"It is comforting to know every day that we are in contact with people who put such confidence in us that we strive harder to do our best.  Where one person can be challenged, another may need to be told how to rise above emotions and imagined shortcomings.  We all need approval and attention, and when someone cares, it makes an important difference."  

I confirm for the nth time that I do not speak harshly to anyone in recovery.  What do you remember: praise and encouragement?  Or a detailed accounting of where you fell short?  We're our own worst enemies.  Pointing out someone's failures is piling on.

"We work with what we know, with what we have.  To anguish over what we did in the past is foolish.  The Cherokee calls this 'remembering the things that never were.'  How can we know another man's heart or true desire?  We're not even sure about our own.  One who never has a good word or a good thought for anyone reveals his terrible need."

I've had enough with the terrible need.  I lived for too many years in a state of terrible neediness.  It's no good.  It's overrated.