DUI Guy, Showing Up

I forgot that I had told DUI Guy I was going to be at the meeting today and tomorrow and I was surprised to see him sitting in the back row . . . with a notebook and a 12 & 12.  He stills looks miserable.  Beating the shit out of himself miserable.  On the rare occasions that I think some tough love would be appropriate I'm usually electro-shocked back into reality by how ruined a new person is.  Talking tough to me seems like piling on.

I have a semi-busy day today being totally self-centered so I didn't really feel like sitting down with someone feeling sorry for himself and listening to him drone on and on about what a raw deal he was getting after getting caught doing some illegal - dangerously illegal.  "I was almost home," he said, shaking his head ruefully, as if that made it okay.  I was not surprised to find out that we were reading from Step 12 in today's literature meeting: carrying the message to another suffering alcoholic.  And there I was with the stoner/psychedelic rock band from Poland, Weedpecker, all queued up on my earbuds.  After the meeting I invited him to join me for a coffee, an offer he eagerly accepted.  For the first thirty minutes I sat there and listened to him detail his travails until he began to talk himself out.  If I think about something I can usually warp it into the shape I want but when I'm talking to someone live, listening to myself talk, the shit can get pretty irrational.  I can't believe I have the guts to spool out some of the crap I'm spooling out.  It gets embarrassing.  I could see him losing steam.  There were a few pauses where I tossed in an idea or two and because he was losing steam I could see him consider the remarks.  When someone wants to talk that means they don't want to listen. 

The Good King and The Cruel Tyrant

"As long as things were tough and the job a challenge I could always manage to hold on pretty well, but as soon as I learned the combination, got the puzzle under control and the boss to pat me on the back, I was gone again.  Routine jobs bored me, but I would take on the toughest one I could find, work day and night until I had it under control; then it would become tedious  and I'd lose all interest in it.  I could never be bothered with the follow-through."

There's a story attributed to the Buddha where he visits two kingdoms - one ruled by a kind king and one ruled by a cruel tyrant.  The Buddha asks the kind king to scour his realm for a bad player and the cruel one to find someone truly good.  As this is a parable you can imagine the result: the good King could always find something admirable even in the worst of his subjects while the cruel king never failed to find something objectionable in each and every person.

There's probably a point to this story but I have no IDEA what it is.  Unless it's a reminder that we're going to find what we're looking for.  We're going to have a good day or a bad day largely based on our approach.

Nothing Stays the Same - Everything Changes All the Time

As I get older I see people have begun to perceive me in a different light.  I'm usually okay with that.   We change as we get older and we begin to occupy a different place in the world.  Man, am I stating the obvious this morning . . .   I see that for most people who are younger than me that I'm a trusted advisor, a beloved uncle, an occasional stabilizing presence, but that I'm no longer someone to have fun with.  That sounds harsh and depressing - I don't mean it to but there's some truth to it and it can be unsettling.  I can see that someone twenty years younger than me considers me an old guy while living in the very comfortable delusion that someone twenty years younger than they are still considers them a player.  Mostly, I bask in this kind of attention.  My hard-earned wisdom gleaned from years of fucking up and adjusting my behavior, reading, listening can help people if I apply it at the appropriate time and place.

A very, very good friend of mine, a dear, decent man is killing it in the financial world right now so he bought a boat and he occasionally invites several people to spend an afternoon cruising around.  He doesn't invite me - I'm fifteen years older than he is - but he does invite single women twenty years younger than he is.  So you can see the disconnect.  Recently he sent me a text saying that "someone had cancelled and a spot opened up on the boat" for the next outing.  I laughed and shook my head at the callousness of the remark.  He didn't mean to be unkind but . . . whew . . . that was clumsy.  There was some subtext there.  I felt like he might set up a small throne in the bow of the boat where the young people could make pilgrimages to and bring me offerings of flowers and fresh fruit.

To top off this Reckoning that I'm living through, becoming increasingly aware of, the one married guy he invites pays a lot of attention to single women . . . attractive single women . . . and this is annoying me.  SuperK said today: "OK.  I can see you are still able to carry a resentment."  D'oh!  His wife is aware of how he spends his time and - in his telling - is fine with it.  He spends a day from time to time with old girlfriends and has dinner with single women before meetings, that kind of behavior.  I've broached the subject with him a few times and he laughs it off.  I don't think he's taking anything further than these social interactions but I'm more and more uncomfortable with his behavior.  If I said I was going to spend the day with three single women twenty years younger than me - single women in bathing suits or shorts and tank tops - SuperK wouldn't object too strenuously while thinking: "Huh.  He wants to spend the day with them and not with me."  She would understand that I have need to socialize outside my marriage but would be skeptical of the circumstances.  My experience in long-term relationships that when the inevitable blow-up occurs it's almost always the result of a long string of minor irritations.  I try to stay aware of the minor irritations.  I try to minimize the minor irritations as the SuperK Blow Up is a fearsome thing to  endure.

I have no doubt that I'm harboring some resentment over the inevitable facts of aging.  Like I have any options in this department.  And I'm harboring some resentment over this guy's behavior.  Like that's any of my business.  And then there's Hot Tub Guy!  The bastards are coming at me from all sides!  I also need to recognize that my friendships are alive things.  They change and evolve and sometimes they get a lot stronger as I recognize some quality in the other person that I didn't see right away and sometimes they fray when a behavior or characteristic that was initially hidden or concealed becomes apparent.

One of my younger friends - who almost never contacts me - sent along a pretty deep passage from a pretty deep book this morning.  It landed at the right time.  It affirmed that I hold an important place in the hearts of many people while not always enjoying the structure and mechanics of that place.  I don't get to build an image of myself to others and then present it to them while saying: "Here.  This is me."  I'm who they think I am.  That's their prerogative.  I don't get to define myself.

Karma Means You Don't Get Away With Nothin'

"Try working with this kind of awareness in your life.  If your intention was unskillful or unkind, try changing it and see what happens after a while.  At first you may only experience the results of your previous defensive attitude.  Try responding only when your heart is open and kind.  When you don't feel this way, wait and let the difficult feelings pass.  As the Buddha instructed, let your speech and actions arise gently, with kindly intent, in due season, and to their benefit.  As we pay attention, the fruit of whatever we do, both skillfully and unskillfully, seems to manifest more quickly.  As we study this law of cause and effect we will see that whenever we or someone else acts in a way that is base on grasping, hatred, prejudice, judgment, or delusion, the results will inevitably bring some suffering."

Karma, Again

Intension:  Something done on purpose; something specifically designed or thought out; planned.

"As we intend and then act, we create karma; so another key to understanding the creation of karma is becoming aware of intension.  The intention or attitude that we bring to each situation of life determines the kind of karma that we create.  The intentions in our hearts are crucial.  When we pay attention, it becomes possible to become more aware of our intentions and the state of our hearts they arise in conjunction with the actions and speech that are our responses.  It is not possible to change the patterns of our behavior or create new karmic conditions until we become present and awake at the beginning of the action.  The development of awareness in meditation allows us to become mindful enough or conscious enough to recognize our heart and intentions as we go through the day."  

Jack Kornfield

A friend of mine brought up the fact that the intent behind the Seventh Step is that I humbly (humbly!) ask (a request!  not an order!) my Higher Power to remove the character defects that stand in the way of my usefulness to others.  It says nothing about all of our defects being removed or when they're going to be removed or if they're going to be removed at all.  When I talk to people in recovery I like to share struggles and difficulties that I have, persistent anxieties or shitty behaviors that I repeat over and over again.  I'm a lot better than I used to be.  I'm pretty good.  I'm not great, but pretty good is a lot better than I used to be and I still fall short every single day.  Anyway, I'm very familiar with the concept she referenced but it's a concept that I forget repeatedly.  This is one of the reasons I come to meetings - to be reminded of things that I know but have slipped my mind.  This morning I pick up my Daily Meditation book and that exact same phrase is the subject of the day's reading.  I laughed out loud.  I used to call these occurrences serendipity or a coincidence but I no longer think that way.  

To continue this withering message barrage that was striking me full-force the reading in my non-Alcoholics Anonymous book was all about karma.  Karma means "action."  I did not know that.  I placed the concept of karma into the Woo Woo category of concepts, kind of esoteric and mysterious and kind of bullshitty.  I understood karma to mean that if my behavior was bad in a previous life then I'm come back as sea slug or a mosquito or . . . well . . . Little Stevie Seaweed.  Now I understand it to mean that there is a constant, on-going interconnectedness in my world that I cannot see and can only dimly understand.

DUI Guy

I got an out-of-the-blue text message from a guy who attended the Keep It Complicated meeting for a while and then less frequently and then . . . . and then . . . and then . . .  Nice guy, got along with him very well, was never convinced he was very serious about his recovery, a periodic drunk which can be a little baffling for us daily maintenance drinkers.  The Big Book talks about a category of people who "want to want to get sober."  I'm careful with this class.  They can waste my time.  They usually waste my time.  I try to be helpful but let's at least pretend some enthusiasm, show up at meetings from time to time, etc. etc.  I've spent too much time waiting for people who intend to keep a commitment but don't follow through on their committement.     I made a loose plan to meet him at today's meeting, dangling the possibility of coffee afterwards.  This way if the dude in question is a no-show I'm doing something I want/need to do.   He did show up . . . . eventually . .  . . ten minutes late, looking unsettled and unkempt, pissed at the world.

Afterwards I listened to him fulminate about his bad luck and bad circumstances for ten minutes, self-pity oozing out of every pore of his body, before calling an audible on the coffee, punting the invitation to two consecutive days at the end of the week.  I have about ten minutes of bitching patience for someone who is a few days sober.  I have about four minutes of bitching patience for someone who is unhappy about being punished for doing something illegal while they're drunk.  I'm at my heart a kind person so I didn't toss out the example made of me when I pitched a bitch about getting a speeding ticket when I was . . . you know . . . speeding.  "How fast where you going and what was the speed limit? which were the only two salient facts about the incident.  Personally, I think we need to issue more DUI tickets and we need to make the fines and penalties worse than they are now.  It's bad enough not caring enough about yourself to stay out of a car when you're drunk but it's positively evil to put other people at risk at the same time.

He looked miffed when I bailed on coffee.  So be it.  I'm fine with that.  This guy asked me several months ago how long I had been sober and said: "Wow.  That's impressive." when I told him.  I always point out that one day at a time applies to everyone, that it's a case of not drinking each day and then the days add up.  There aren't any Bonus Rounds where you get two days for the price of one.  I have to do the same thing every day that the new person has to do.  There's no skipping ahead.  I may have pissed him off.   We'll see.  If that's enough to irk him then he's not evincing much dedication when a lot of dedication is necessary.  Maybe he'll  "show me."  That's fine, too.

Meetings? Or Not?

Sometimes I think I put too much emphasis on how Alcoholics Anonymous many meetings I attend.  I'm back from a long trip with no access to meetings (I offer no credible excuse as to why I couldn't attend one of the thousands of available on-line meetings) and barely a month home and I'm sensing some annoyance with my regular meeting.  There are a lot of regular members there which means I get to see and hear from a lot of the same people - while I appreciate their dedication in helping the meeting to thrive do you have to share at length at every meeting?  I continue to maintain that most people are not nearly as interesting as they think they are.  I also express a gentler, kinder seething at why some members think the timer the group voted to install to ensure that no one talks too long and more people get to share is some kind of ignorable suggestion.  Three minutes of droning on and on is too long as it is but to blithely continue to producing more droning noises after the timer has sounded is way too long.  I lose interest in a great share after a couple of minutes but anything longer than that and the person's voice begins to sound like a dentist's drill in an adjacent room while I'm trying to fall asleep.

I've got a couple of non-recovery projects and tasks I've been trying to get rolling for a while now and the meetings are taking up more time than I can spare if I want to get these things rolling.  There should be a balance between recovery time and living life time.  If I spend too much of my day in recovery efforts I stint my normal life but if I shirk my recovery efforts then my normal life starts to . . . well . . . suck a little bit.  I didn't go for six weeks and I was fine.  I did my daily devotions and meditated and the like but I wasn't involved in the  meeting process and it was, in a way, good for me.  It freed up chunks of time to do other things.  It's analogous to SuperK living in a hotel for a week all by herself on her recent trip to see her brother.  She enjoys my company and her life at home but sometimes it can be healthy just to be by yourself, doing what you want to do when you want to do it.  I'm not going to drift into the room and intrude with an uninteresting story.  If I live my life like this all the time then I'm selfish but if I get to do it from occasionally then I'm taking care of my own mental health.  SuperK golfs on Wednesdays so I make sure to stay home that day.  It's just me and that's just fine on Wednesdays.  She was nervous about being on her own for a week in Idaho but she enjoyed herself quite a bit.  

Karma, Kramer

Karma: The law of cause and effect,  where actions, both good and bad, affect future outcomes; the belief that your actions and choices can shape your life.

"The law of karma describes the way that cause and effect govern the patterns that repeat themselves throughout all life.  Karma means that nothing arises by itself.  Every experience is conditioned by that which precedes it.  Thus our life is a series of interrelated patterns.  The Buddhists say that understanding this is enought to live wisely in the world."

Jack Kornfield

I didn't put much stock in the concept of karma for the longest time because I ascribed esoteric principles . . . well, that is one awful sentence where I was trying to sound smart and ended up sounding like someone who doesn't know shit and is pretending like he does.  Let's start over.  The point is that for me karma was all wrapped up in what happens in a future life - like if I'm good in this life I'm going to come back as a puppy in my next life and if I'm bad I'm going to come back as a sea slug.  And, again, maybe sea slugs are perfectly content with their respective lots in life.  Who knows?  But if I apply the simple principle of good actions leading to good outcomes and vice versa I think I've got a satisfying way forward.  It isn't always an iron clad concept - there are plenty of examples in our flawed and imperfect human world of bad people "getting away with it" and good people suffering what seem to be unjust and cruel fates - but if I behave well I enjoy great peace of mind.  I don't want any lingering feelings of guilt and remorse because I've behaved poorly.  

Now that I've inarticulately stumbled over the idea of karma here's Mr. Kornfield: "We live in a sea of conditioning patterns that we repeat over and over, yet we rarely notice this process.  Our social karma - parental, school, and linguistic conditioning - creates whole patterns of consciousness that determine the way we express ourselves.  These patterns and tendencies are often much stronger than our conscious intentions.  Whatever our circumstances, it is old habit that will create the way we live.  When Lama Rinpoche was asked what was reborn in our next lives, he joked, 'Your bad habits.'  Our personalities become conditioned according to past causes."

I made a very low-key amends to a man I really respect because I was unsure whether or not some of my gentle ribbing had rubbed him the wrong way.  He was per. fectly okay with it and had taken no offense but I didn't want to live with the doubt.  I used my tongue to reduce people when I was drinking and - although I believe today it's almost always received well - I insist on complete clarity.  This guy is one of those members who has clearly internalized the principles of Right Living.  This is my point.  I may have finally wound my way around to my point while getting trapped in a semantic maze of circular logic.  I think.  The point is that it takes a lot of good actions and good speech to overcome all of these deeply ingrained past patterns to get to a place of true inner peace and beauty.  Today, when I act well and speak well, I rarely think about it.  I just do it.  It's who I am.  I don't have to parse each act or word or thought to gauge whether or not they're healthy and pure because most of the time I'm acting on good motives that are part of my inner core.  It's who I am.

THIS is how I understand karma.  It's enough with the sea slug versus puppy conundrum.  Just act well, speak well, and try to think well . . . most of the time . . . and this is who you will become.

Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

― Lao Tzu

You Get Me

Here are some bits and pieces from the story "Women Suffer Too."  Unlike "To The Wives" which Bill W insisted on writing himself in a pointless piece of arrogance that is alarming in its lack of perspective - I think he was probably justifiably nervous about the scorching he would have received if Lois would have been allowed to pen the chapter - this was actually written by one of our first women alcoholics. 

Here are some snippets that struck me: "That night I got very drunk, which was usual, but I remembered everything, which was very unusual."

The last day I drank alcohol - Easter Sunday in the year of our Lord 1987 - I drank a case of beer and experienced no relief.  Not even a momentary release from the fear and anxiety that was eating me alive.  I thought: "Uh-oh.  This is bad.  This is VERY bad."

"Headstrong and willful, I rushed from pleasure to pleasure, and found the returns diminishing to the vanishing point.  It no longer gave me pleasure - it merely dulled the pain - but I had to have it."

"I had been hypersensitive, shy, idealistic.  My inability to accept the harsh realities of life had resulted in a disillusioned cynic, clothed in a protective armor against the world's misunderstanding."

A disillusioned cynic misunderstood by the world.  That is SO great a description.  You don't understand!  No one understands how special I am, how put upon I am!  I coulda been a contendah!

"This group of freaks and bums."  Describing the first meeting she went to.  Not too far off even today.  I mean have you looked around at the people sitting in your favorite meeting lately?  Whew.

". . . I rarely left my private world of books and dreams.  Long-time escapists.  The feeling of impending disaster . . . "

". . . I am peculiarly qualified, as a fellow-sufferer to give aid and comfort to those who have stumbled and fallen over this business of meeting life."

One of the great realizations for me was that I couldn't bullshit any of the guys who were talking to me early on.  They got it.  They did it, too.  Many of us are swept away with the feeling that we had come home.

Get Away From Me

I try to keep an eye on how outside issues - things, people, events, politics, anything outside of my personal hula hoop - affect my insides.  Most of the time the connection is clear to me, whether it makes me happy or pisses me off or anywhere in between, thanks to a lot of meetings and a lot of talking and a lot of meditation but from time to time I'm surprised to find that an event or a series of events really affect my outlook on matters that have nothing to do with the offending event.  There's a real snowball effect.  I find that upset on something can bleed over into upset about unrelated matters, often matters that wouldn't upset me even on a bad day.  After my encounter with hot tub guy - some random dude I've never seen before and will never see again and why anything this random dude thinks or says would mean anything at all to me is a mystery - there have been a number of smallish encounters that frosted my ass with a much thicker layer of frosting than would normally be deposited.  Makes me think: "What's really going on here?"  There's a subtext that I'm missing.

To wit: my lovely, important neighbor who tsk-tsked me about the Great Donut Caper has some orange trees that we feast on and on and on. We've eaten a lot of delicious, free oranges over the years, hundreds of free oranges and if you've never picked an orange, peeled it, and eaten it on the spot you don't know what you're missing.  But now she has been inviting friends from the community over to harvest oranges, too - I think she may get avocados or some such in return - and I find this mildly annoying.  Those are MY free oranges even though I can't possibly eat all of the fruit this tree produces and my neighbor can do whatever she wants with her fruit.  She can tell me to stay out of her trees.  She can let the fruit rot on the tree.  They're her trees!  They're not my trees!

Not to belabor a point but I will anyway.  I have mentioned that telling people I love them is a big part of my personal persona.  Women are generally much more receptive than men to this so I'm less inclined to behave this way with men.  Which is fine.  Most guys my age - most guys of any age - didn't grow up in families where men talked this way.  I can tell quickly whether or not this is going to fly and I adjust my comments accordingly.  Here's the point, finally: one of my somewhat younger friends has started ending our walks with an obviously sarcastic rendition of "I love you," dripping with disdain, voice attenuated to add to the comic effect.  You know . . . once is enough, man.  I get it.  It was slightly funny at first but now it's annoying.  Again, this is on me, something I started, something I'm happy to quit doing, but, c'mon, really?  I got the point the first time.  Now normally I'd just stop saying it and off we'd go but he is not giving it a rest.  Who gives a shit, right?  Not me 99% of the time but it's kind of sticking in my craw at the moment.

I, at the moment, live in an angry country.  A lot of people are angry.  Not just upset, angry.  I can see how this bleeds into the rest of my existence.  I can see how when I was living a negative life, constantly expressing negative thoughts and words, that people wanted to get away from me.

Delusional Seaweed

Delusion:  A false belief or judgment about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

One of the most perplexing quandaries in my life is how often I fall into the rabbit hole of thinking I'm in control of jack-shit.  I have control over so little in my life yet I believe I'm pulling the levers and pushing the buttons that run the entire universe.  Politics, social conditions, the beliefs and behavior of other people . . .  Jack-shit!  I should have a T-shirt custom printed with that reminder on it.  In my defense my two favorite T-shirts say this: "Get Away From Me" and "I Was Forced To Be Here."

Quotes From the Stories

 "Doctor Bob told me that the first time I drank I turned on a switch and set up a demand for more alcohol.  About this time came increasing procrastination and the avoidance of responsibilities.  I would put off doing anything that I could until the next day and consequently everything would pile up and then there would be the blackout.    I could work a deal up to where all I had to do was to go ahead with it; all the planning had been done, all the financing had been done, but then I'd say, 'Nuts to it!' and walk away.  Near success, only near."   

Boy, the memory of putting a lot of effort into achieving something and then just getting drunk and stoned and pissing the whole thing away.  Those kind of memories still can make me cringe today.  Years and years later and I find myself shaking my head at the insanity of it.

Doctor Bob and Bill W talking to Anonymous Number 3: "It's none of our business about your drinking.  We're not up here trying to take any of your rights or privileges away from you.  Now, if you don't want it we'll not take up your time, and we'll be going and looking for someone else."

For me, that kind of attitude was crack cocaine.  If you told me what to do . . . I didn't do it.   If you told me that what I did was my business only and none of yours . . . I got damn curious.  Most alcoholics respond poorly to authority.  Most alcoholics are defiant in the face of any authority or mandates.

"I still go to meetings, because I like to go.  I meet the people that I like to talk to.  I came into A.A. solely for the purpose of sobriety, but it has been through A.A. that I have found God."

I get the queerest looks when I tell people how long I've been sober and then share how many meetings I still go to.  Maybe I'm just weird looking?  That's plausible, too.

"Rules were made for others, not me."

Man, that's another great line to put on my gravestone.  Special Steve.  Follows the rules unless he doesn't like the rules.  For example, eating a donut in the designated donut-eating zone or redeeming grocery coupons on things designated on the coupon as eligible for a discount.   That kind of stuff. Any rules I don't like will cause me to bang my head against the steel door until you relent or until the flow of blood is so heavy I can't see the door anymore.

Dr. Bob, redux: "So long as I'm thinking as I'm thinking now, and so long as I'm doing the things I'm doing now, I don't believe I'll ever take another drink."  And the man he was talking to: "The important thing was that he was happy.  He was released, relieved from his alcoholism and was happy and contented because of it.  That I shall never forget."      

Another day.  Gotta keep doing what I've been doing.  It's a lot easier but there are no days off.     

Let Me Tell You What To Do

 Perhaps we try to give them advice about their affairs which we aren’t really competent to give or ought to give at all.

A cornerstone of my role in a recovery community is my belief that my best function best is as a sounding board and not as a Director. I don't have a view into the future to determine the best course for anyone or anything, myself included. If you want to talk, I'll listen. If you want to know what I did/am doing/will do, I'll tell you. I try to leave it at that.

Ambition: A strong desire to do or achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. (There is the suggestion that frequently the hard work is going to produce something like money, power, or fame.)

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.

Ahhhhh, yes, how much better is that! I can be ambitious and humble at the same time. I can measure my success by how helpful and useful I am to someone else.

Understanding is the key to right principles and attitudes, and right action is the key to good living; therefore the joy of good living is the theme of A.A.’s Twelfth Step.

Joy. Good living. Understanding. Man, I was woefully lacking in these qualities when I was living a drunken life consumed by self and full of self-pity

Walking On Water

At some point in my sobriety I started Earth People started to ask me from time to time variations of this question: "If you've been sober X-Number of years why do you still go to meetings?"  I'm polite and politically correct in my speech while trying to project the subtext of "Because I can still act like an asshole."

To wit:

I was loosening up in the club hot tub before my swim yesterday, chatting with a friend, when another dude chimed in with some chit-chatty comments, inoffensive and reasonably pleasant, asking me eventually where I went to school.  When I told him he remarked that the best president in U.S. history went there, too.   I didn't get the reference but was nonplussed to hear him name someone who I do NOT consider the best president in U.S. history.  I have a personal policy of not engaging in political discourse with anyone who is rigid in their beliefs.  Life to me has too many gray areas which precludes me from stating with great certainty that this is right and that is not.  I'm also impressed with St. Francis' suggestion that I seek to understand rather than be understood so I asked this dude what this president has done that he liked and he rattled off in machine-gun fashion a quick list of partisan news talking points: a mix of fact, fiction, things lacking context, things only looked at from a narrow point of view, conspiracy theory shit, and some complete, total, utter, unadulterated crap gleaned from the farthest reaches of the dark web.  When I brought up something that this official said he was going to do but did not do the dude immediately blamed his predecessor.  At this point I was recalling why I didn't talk to people about politics when my friend started to engage him in a pretty heated argument and I was able to fade into the bushes.  When the dude got out of the hot tub he told my buddy: "Young man, I feel sorry for you," adding a healthy dose of condescension to his previous delusional and mean-spirited remarks.

I swam.  I went to the grocery store.  I used my phone camera to access a digital coupon that allowed me to buy a six-pack of soda that normally costs $7 for $3.  Hmmm.  Good deal so I grabbed four of them.  Down the aisle a bit I see another digital coupon offering the same savings on a totally different product made by a totally different company.  Hmmmmmmm.  Three of those go into the cart.  After I checked out I noticed I received the discount on five of the six-packs but was charged full price for the other two.  Then a series of really frustrating conversations ensued where two different employees explained the discount was good for only five six-packs of any kind of soda.  I kept explaining that I had less than five six-packs from two different companies that make two different products but got nowhere.  I was quick to assure the two employees that I wasn't mad at them but I was clearly annoyed.  To no effect.

Couple of amusing sidebars.  Normally I buy two bottles of the soda for about 75% of the price of the six bottles in the six-pack.  I know it's foolish but I want a COLD soda RIGHT NOW so I do it all the time and I don't really care about the extra cost.  I can afford it and I don't want to wait until I get home to pour a warm soda over ice.  The point being that the last six single bottles of soda I bought cost in the neighborhood of $12.  So the point is that I'm pissed off at saving $6 on the full price six pack soda.  I know this is a lot of math but the point is that I'm insane.  The point is that the contentious talk with the hot tub dude had clearly gotten under my skin.

The other thing that pricks me is that I suspect the grocery chains fuck around with the promotions in ways that trick people into overspending.  One week the dollar item is fifty cents but you have to buy at least five of them and the next week there's a limit of three and then . . . you get the point.  Like I can read the tiny printing on the tiny labels anyhow.

When you run into one asshole in the course of your day you may have run into an asshole.  If you run into a second asshole it's starting to look more and more likely that you're the asshole.  And if you run into a third asshole then we know who the asshole is.

Annoyed at hot tub dude and annoyed at losing a few bucks on soda I don't need I swing into the clubhouse of our complex because on Thursday management buys some boxes of donuts and I rarely turn down a donut and I never turn down a free donut.  There, next to a lot of donuts is a new sign informing the residents that the donuts could no longer be taken home.  Yeah, right, Fuck the Rules Guy takes his donut, wraps it up, and starts to walk out, only to hear: "Sir.  Sir.  I'm sorry you can't take the donuts home" and was surprised to see my next door neighbor, a good neighbor and important friend to SuperK.  I thought she was joking.  She was not joking, I don't think.  I was so sure she was joking that I kept walking with the donut only to have her mention the donut theft again later that day.

I try to be a good resident and neighbor so I knew I'd end up following the new rule but it was annoying, too annoying for it to be a normal reaction to something unimportant.  These are sweat-shop donuts mass produced and average in taste and quality.  I can afford to buy my own, good donut, maybe at the grocery store that just really irritated me.  Anway, only half-joking, I started to float these ideas to SuperK:  Standing half-in, half-out of the clubhouse doorway and eating the donut there; taking the donut to the furthest reach of the clubhouse grounds and eating the donut there; taking a donut, eating one bite, and tossing the rest into the garbage, you can see my malevolence is limitless, respecting no bounds.

So this is what 38 years of sobriety can occasionally look like . . . Dammit.

Damn Friends, Anyway

SuperK is in Idaho visiting her favorite sibling, a brother who is the second youngest child and closest to her in age.  He's ailing and declining, health-wise, battling cancer.  She was worried about how the trip was going to affect her before she left but I knew deep-down she'd be fine.  I know painful things are upsetting but spiritually centered people have an amazing inner strength that they can draw upon when times get tough and we all know that times will indeed get tough from time to time.  It's how the world works.  It's the nature of existence.  Death and dying are facts and cannot be avoided.  I also suspected that she might enjoy a week on her own in a hotel room.  Having no one to answer to for a brief time can be very relaxing and satisfying.  In long dosages it can be lonely but in short bursts it can be nourishing.  It's very expansive to allow yourself to do what you want when you want to do it.

I'm in the same boat.  I don't mind being alone from time to time.  I also know that being alone is not always great for my sanity.  And I know that I have a tendency to stick to the tried and true rather than step out and do something different, something with people (shudder).  As an example, SuperK and I have theater tickets where we spend a night out of town and as the time grows closer we don't want to go and then we go anyway and have a great time.  Why I can't internalize this knowledge emotionally is a great mystery to me but there you go, almost everything rational is a great mystery to me.   Yesterday a friend texted a dinner invitation to me.  His wife and a teenage son were going to be present - I've met neither - and my initial response to an invitation like that is "Fuck, no, I'm going to watch a stupid movie by myself tonight" but I immediately responded: "Sounds great" which committed me to the invitation.   I was vaguely uneasy all day about the dinner.  I went, I enjoyed myself the entire time, and it really made me feel great afterwards.  Expansive.  This is the conundrum for someone who thrives on quiet and calmness.  Do I neglect the social part of life?  Humans are, after all, social creatures.  We don't do well living in caves by ourselves.  It's damp!  There's no cable!  Etc, etc, etc.

Shape Shifting Seaweed

I spend a lot of time pondering my tendency to bend myself into whatever shape I think I need to assume to best fit the situation.  Sometimes this is admirable and kind.  After all I'm going to start a conversation differently depending on the circumstances.  I'm going to take a different approach with a new person living in a halfway house than with a well-off lawyer with a good job and a nice house, even though the progression of their disease and the consequential destruction will bear a lot of similarities.  And I freely admit to being a total shape shifter when I was drinking.  I wanted you to like me and I wanted to fit in so I put on whatever facade was appropriate.  This is not how I want to act today and I think - for the most part - I'm a pretty authentic character.  What you see is what you get.  It may not be all that great but it's me.  I'm not putting on a show for anyone.

Still . . . I find myself feinting and juking.  For instance I was invited to breakfast along with a large contingent of members from the Keep It Complicated meeting to help a woman celebrate an A.A. birthday.  While I was pleased to be included this really isn't my gig, my thing, not in my comfort zone, my interest zone.  I would be happy to go out to coffee with you.  I'd be happy to join you and one other person, maybe two, depending on the crowd maybe even three, but after that I don't groove on the vibe.  Too many people, too many conversations on too many topics, people jostling to talk to you and over you and around you, too many people that don't interest me all that much, too much, too many, blah, blah, blah, get away from me, you feel me?  Because I care about the birthday girl I decided to tell a little white lie and skip out on breakfast.  I wasn't lying to make myself feel bigger or to deceive or hurt anyone so I almost justified the lie on the grounds that I was being kind.  Still, it sort of ate at me a little bit.  In the end, I just said that I couldn't make it and she was fine with that.  She expressed a lot of gratitude that I'm at the meeting regularly and she did not delve into why I wasn't coming and that was that and it was a lot cleaner than lying.

Per usual, my sense of my importance is highly overrated.  I am more than certain than everyone had a good time at breakfast and that no one noted that I wasn't present.  I'm not on everybody's mind.  

Once Again . . .

You never know who you're going to help and it's often hard to know what action or phrase or example someone else finds helpful.  I find that when I think my share just tore it up and blew everyone in the room away I'll be stuck looking at a sea of blank faces in a room full of crickets, and when I feel like I was confused and inarticulate to the point of total incoherence someone will come over, relating on a deep level to my gibberish and thanking me for being helpful.

There's a woman who is going to be celebrating her one year anniversary on Sunday.  I know her primarily because I make it a point to welcome people I don't know - right up to the point of intrusive annoyance - and God help anyone unfortunate to identify as newly sober at my meeting.  I think one of my values to the group is my relentless drive to make everyone feel a part of.  It seems to be mostly appreciated and I know how to read a person's response at this point - I don't hammer away at anyone who seems cool or uninterested in the approach.  This woman is quiet and lacking in confidence even though she has a degree in some arcane physical science and a good job at a biotech company.  I would say we have a passing friendship.  I don't push it.  She's polite but breezes out of the Room after the meeting without a lot of lingering.  So be it and all fine and good and far more common than any other reaction to my unrequesting probing and poking.

On Tuesday she asked if I was going to be at the meeting on Sunday.

"I don't normally come on Sunday," I said.  "Why?  What's up?"

Her one year anniversary/birthday.

"Then I'll come on Sunday," I said.

Good, she said.  Her mother is going to attend, and her boyfriend.  I get the sense she wants to introduce me . . . . as some kind of who the fuck knows what?  Friend?  Mentor?  Counselor?  I don't really know but it means a lot to me that she asked.  I guess I'm providing some support or compassion that she finds important or healthy or something something something.  And again no mention of a father figure.  I see how I'm able to fill different roles for different people.  Today I took a walk with a friend who's several years older than me and also married to a feisty partner.  There was obviously a different vibe to this interaction.

Got It? Gonna Lose It. Don't Got It? Not Gonna Get It.

This is one of my favorite passages from the literature:  " . . . primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded (Ed. Note: Demanded, not wanted.).  Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration (Ed. Note: Continual disturbance and frustration.).  Therefore no peace was to be had unless we could find a means of reducing these demands.  The difference between a demand and a simple request is plain to anyone."

If I got it I'm afraid I'm gonna lose it and if I don't got it I'm afraid I'm not gonna get it.  Yowser!  That's a wicked knife edge of misery.  It reminds me of the end of my drinking where I needed to drink enough to get relief but then I'd always continue until I was so drunk and so high that the complications of being so out  of control became more of a problem than the temporary, vanishing release the alcohol and drugs gave me.

There's a contingent of birds that are in the garden area outside my office window that start their chatter as it begins to get light.  They repeat a sound rapidly that sounds exactly like "chirp."  I like the noise.  It's life.  They're doing the only things important to them: finding food and not getting eaten.  I like the fact that they're going to shit out some undigested seeds so a plant can take root somewhere else.  I like to toss out seeds from my fruits and vegetables - just toss them on the earth and see what happens.  I ate some small cantaloupes last year that grew out of nowhere and there are always scraggly tomato plants popping up here and there.  Nature!

Quiet Time Interruptions:

Politics, politics, and more politics.  I have a friend who's going to be on a vacation with some inlaws who are on the opposite side of the political spectrum and I think I feel worse about his prospects than the does.  He helps me remember that St. Francis asks us to "understand rather than be understood."  He's always quick to point out the kindness and generosity of people that make MY blood boil - not boil, exactly, kind of get hot - and I'm not going to be within three thousand miles of them.  This is always a great lesson for me and one I forget all the time.  Politics is confrontational and vexing and in your face.  I'm not going to read the paper today.  The state of politics in my world is demanding.

I've been listening to a genre of music called Stoner Rock or Heavy Psych Rock or something else like that because I still prefer heavy metal to anything else.  There's a song called "Innerspeaker" by the band Kosmodrom that has a riff I can't get out of my head.  Music is demanding.

I had intrusive thoughts about a show SuperK and I are watching while I was meditating.  Not bad thoughts, just intrusive thoughts.  Video is demanding. 

The feeling that I'm not doing enough.  Thinking about what I have to do today.  Wondering if I can get it all done.  Vaguely uneasy because I'm in the future and not in the present.

More Quiet Time Pop-Ins

"More than the profound concentration of many meditation practices, therapy has the quality  of investigation and discovery.  In an unfortunate way, many students of Eastern and Western spirituality have been led to believe that if they experience difficulties, it is simply because they haven't practiced long enough or somehow have not been practicing according to the teachings.   We may have been taught that experiences we have at the 'spiritual' level in meditation, as if by magic, will have power to transform all the other levels of our being.  In truth, the need to deal with our personal emotional problems is more the rule in spiritual practice than the exception.  Without dealing with these issues, we will not be able to concentrate during meditation, or we will find ourselves unable to bring what we have learned in meditation into our interaction with others."

Jack Kornfield

If you break your leg go to the hospital.  Don't pray for acceptance.

Here's Doctor Bob: "So long as I'm thinking as I'm thinking now, and so long as I'm doing the things I'm doing now, I don't believe I'll ever take another drink."  While I realize I need to keep doing today what I've been doing I have no trouble believing that I'll never have to drink again.  One day at a time, for sure, but with a long-term goal in mind.

Here's some Quiet Time pop-ins:

There's a guy at my fitness club that I really can't stand.  He's a big, loud, super-confident bald guy who shouts out his opinions - many of them fatuous - while holding court - holding people hostage is a better way to put it - often after eavesdropping on someone else's conversation.  He's such an idiot that I have trouble with the "restraint of tongue" concept.  Yesterday he informed everyone that exercise only really helps you feel good while you're exercising and won't make any difference in your health long term.  I leaned over to the guys he was haranguing and quipped: "Well, that's the best rationale for using heroin today that I've ever heard."

I stopped in to see a good friend yesterday who never really came back to meetings after the pandemic ended.  His company was starting to make me feel a little uncomfortable.  A lot of the time when someone starts slacking on their recovery I get this sense of an individual who is stuck and no longer growing, of a lack of any forward progress.  I walked into his store and he was clearly very excited to see me which actually didn't make me feel great initially.  I haven't been "seeking to comfort rather than be comforted."  I have been more concerned with my own personal comfort than the comfort of a good friend.   He just bought a vacation home in a small Mexican town and gave me the scoop about the local A.A. club in great detail.  Who knows what causes us to change direction? 

So many of us in America are uncomfotable with the direction our country is taking.  On the left, on the right, in between, in our opinions we seem lost and it came be frightening and disconcerting.

It's all going to go.  All of it.  The stuff, the people, you, it's all going to go.  So what are you hanging on to today?  Whatever it is I can guarantee you that it's temporary.

There is absolutely nothing more important than being in the moment.  I've said it many times before and I'll say it many more times because I need to keep reinforcing it in my mind.

Resentments, Et Al

Resentment:  A complex, multilayered emotion that is a mixture of disappointment, disgust, and anger, especially when you feel someone or something is being unfair.

One of the problems with lying as much as I do is that it makes it a lot harder to tell the truth and have anyone believe you but here goes anyway: one of the big advantages of staying sober for a long time and working a complex, mulitilayered spiritual program is that my resentment level is way, way down and my resentment list is much, much shorter.  So many things that used to trigger resentments I let slide today so that I almost walk on water in my complex, multilayered spiritual state.

And then . . . 

I mentioned being called on the carpet as a donut rule breaker and how this triggered a little flash of annoyance.  I pay a hefty chunk of money monthly on site rent and don't use any of the facilities in the complex which - to my thinking - entitles me to a fucking donut every couple of weeks, despite the rule - the new rule - which states that if I want a donut I have to eat the donut in the clubhouse.  The fact that it's a dumb rule isn't the point.  SuperK likes to point out the too frequent instances where I "think I'm special that the rules - if dumb - don't apply to me."  If something is dumb I don't like to do it.  I'd like to be exempt from the rule, to be an exception.

 

When I got home after the donut shaming I used my wife as a venting board to detail some possible twisted schemes and proposals.  In my defense I wasn't really mad and no real resentment developed and I never seriously considered doing any of these things but the fact they popped into my mind so quickly and effortlessly points to some still lingering character flaws, calling into question exactly how far I could walk on the hypothetical water.

My first thought was to open the clubhouse door and put one foot outside, one foot inside, and eat the donut in that position, arguing what constitutes being "in" the clubhouse legally.  I then imagined taking my donut and strolling slowly, menacingly out to the furthest reach of the clubhouse grounds - not physically in the clubhouse but pretty close to the clubhouse - and eat the donut there, strategically positioning myself where everyone could see me bending the rules to the breaking point, asking them to prove in a court of law what the "clubhouse" was, exactly.  Would I be technically following the rule or still in breach of contract? At my most sinister I could take my donut, sit down at one of the tables, in full compliance of the rules, nibble the tiniest corner off the donut, then throw the rest of it away, slowly and in full view of whoever put up that sign.

These are not the thoughts of an individual free from all resentments.

Popping Into My Mind

One of the primal lessons in/of meditation is to stay in the moment, to look at whatever pops into my mind while I'm trying to quiet my mind and my mind refuses to quiet down, to look with curiosity and openness, not trying to control the thoughts or direct them or suppress them, to just say: "Huh.  I just thought about Ohio State football recruiting" and then redirecting my attention to my breath.

So in my Quiet Time this morning I was pretty quiet but my mind did interfere from time to time, the incessant bastard.

Here's a playlist:

Yesterday I contacted a friend with whom I had spent a great deal of time when I was using.  Not an alcoholic, just a guy I partied with.  I have learned over the years that he's an old friend but not a close friend.  I don't contact him often and he never contacts me and this used to irk me.  The interaction was pleasant and funny but it played out like it always does.  I won't contact him again for a long time and I'm saying that with no ill will or resentment but with an understanding of who I am and who he is and what kind of interaction that this always, always leads to.

Being pulled by a young man back toward the boat when I was struggling in a strong current while snorkeling in the Maldives.  I wasn't in any danger of drowning but I was struggling against a current that was more powerful than I realized in a body that is weaker than it used to be.  This reminiscence produces a mild, vague unease in my mind.  It was one of those reminders that my body is slowly deteriorating and that that's okay.   Keep moving but don't decide to do some cliff diving in Baja Califoria.  It's enough with the cliff diving already.

A friend who lives in the Northeast that falls into that blessed, blessed category of dear, old friend that I don't ever see or talk to.  And then back to my buddy who taught me that a good friend doesn't have to be someone with a constant physical presence in my life.  One of those lessons that really changed how I view friendship and all of my relationships.  It helps me hold people dear to me in my heart without expectations and preconditions.   It definitely helped me process my perception of the essential shallowness of the first friend I discussed at the start of the post.

Taking a solo trip through the Northeast to see people I know who are scattered through that region.

Taking a trip back to sincity.  Who I would see and what I would do.  I think there are a lot of people who would expect to see me but wouldn't.  I think there are a lot of things I would do on my own.  I think I'd see people that I want to see for reasons unique to me and not because I would/should be expected to see them.  Incredibly freeing this thinking is!  I'm surprised at how some relationships have lapsed and some have grown.  Ten years ago I would have pondered a trip where I would have spent a lot more time doing what I thought I should do and not what I want to do.  Does this sound selfish?  Hmmmm.  Maybe it's just wise.  It takes two to maintain a healthy, strong relationship and if one person isn't putting in the effort maybe it's time to move on, or at least move forward on a different path.

How important/comforting it is to be Me.  I've written about this at length so I won't drone on and on about it today, not because I care if you're bored, dear reader, but because I'M bored with the topic.  Be you today.  Let it rip.  Be nice but be you.  I got a haircut yesterday where I cut off my pony tail and I look like a Marine now - high and tight - and if I spike up the little hair on the top  of my head I look like a huge Q-Tip.  It doesn't look particularly attractive but it's going to grow back and what the fuck do I care what you think, anyway?

SuperK and I had a talk with our health insurance broker yesterday where the topic was our health  insurance.  Get it?  We were both a little nervous because it involves money and our health - get it? - but it went fine and everything's fine and we're both content and un-anxious because we were able to click off a thing that we needed to do but that made us nervous.  Everything isn't going to be easy all the time.  Today the broker told us that she wished ALL of her clients did this on a yearly basis.

The state of our country and how this is affecting the little bit of money I have saved.  And how little control I have over any of this.  And how I'm managing to stay involved in the political/communal discourse but not buying into the fury and rage and pigheadedness of some/many of my fellow citizens.  We had the angst of the Great Depression and Gilded Age, and we worried Communists were everywhere with nuclear bombs hidden in their underwear, and then the hippies and free-love Socialists were going to ruin the moral fabric of our country and then . . . and then . . . and then . . .  So if I want to worry I'm going to worry and my worrying is going to change precisely nothing.

How much money I have and how much money I need and how much money I want and how happy does the money make me?  I have enough to eat and a warm, dry, safe place to sleep tonight and that's more than a lot of people have.

I didn't dwell on these thoughts.  They popped in my noggin, I took a look at them, and I tried to refocus on my breath, to be in the moment, to be present.  But the fact that I was able to write about them at such length and in such detail shows how important they are to me and how worthy of great attention when the time is right.

Be Afraid!

 Fear.  This short word somehow touches every aspect of our lives.  It was an evil and corroding thread.  The fabric of our existence was shot through with it.  It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn’t deserve.  A soul sickness.

Can we steadfastly content ourselves with the humbler, yet sometimes more durable, satisfactions when the brighter, more glittering achievements are denied us?

There was a one hit pop-rock that went by the name Gary Glitter. That's a good name. Unfortunately, Gary is also a convicted child pornograher. So there's that. His big hit was Rock and Roll Part One. There were no lyrics. This is a glittering thing?

The spiritual life is not a theory - we have to live it.

Here's the deal as I see it: I don't know shit. I think I know a lot - I think I know everything - but I basically know fuck-all. I'm so much wiser and so much more experienced than when I got sober but I'm still an idiot about half the time. I realize today that - metaphorically speaking - I need to just stay in my own lane and drive the speed limit. If you want to go slow or speed or change lanes constantly it's really none of my business. I have a better day when I sit in the backyard and watch the monarch butterflies flit around my melon head. The monarchs have a better idea what's going on than I do. If you're confused about something you'd be better off talking to a monarch. Monarch butterflies travel from Canada to Mexico - a distance of 3,000 miles - using an internal GPS to go somewhere they've never been before. So why would you ask me something when you could tap the brain of this creature? Do what seems best for you today and God Speed, little doodle.

Painful Pain

 

His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles.

I repeat the Hot Stove Story: mom tells child not to touch hot stove; child, defiant, touches hot stove; child gets burned by hot stove; child is pissed at mom. This is my behavior pre-Alcoholics Anonymous. I blamed the universe for my problems and not my behavior. The stove isn't evil. It's a stove and it's hot. Mom isn't evil - usually, anyhow - but the inherent, immanent, indwelling properties of hot metal meeting human skin will not be denied. The result is predetermined, preordanied, so . . . maybe stop touching the hot metal.

Great suffering and great love are A.A.’s disciplinarians; we need no others.

Someone who knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress.

Touchstone: A stone used to identify precious metals (an assaying tool).

Touchstone: A means of assaying relative merits of a concept.

I still don't know what a touchstone is.

We had ceased fighting anything and anyone - even alcohol.

We have been talking about problems because we are problem people who have found a way up and out, and who wish to share our knowledge of that way with all who can use it.

Inventory and the Fifth Step and Instincts Gone Astray

Rampage:  Rush around in a violent and uncontrollable manner; a state of violent anger or agitation.

Balk:  Hesitate or be unwilling to accept an idea or undertaking. 

Instincts on rampage balk at investigation.

Ceaselessly: Continuously and without end.

These fears are the termites that ceaselessly devour the foundation of whatever sort of life we try to build. . . .

I had a friend in sincity who loved the use of the wood-devouring insect termite as a metaphor - or is it a simile? - for his mind. I'd catch him on the phone and inquire after his mental health. Sometimes he'd just say: "Termites" and we'd both laugh at the image of a horde of negative thoughts eating away at his serenity. Unseen, unbidden, destroying from within without leaving any visible signs of destructions.

We should be sensible, tactful, considerate, and humble without being servile or scraping.  As God’s people we stand on our feet; we don’t crawl before anyone.

We spend a great deal of time trying to reinforce the idea that we need to make amends; that we need to make amends without any qualifiers, with no "buts;" and that the reaction of the amendee is none of our business. We are sweeping our side of the street. Many if not most of the amendees have our best interests at heart and are thrilled to hear that we're trying to get some help while remaining understandably suspicious. We've said we're sorry and that we won't do it again so many times and then promptly doing it again that most other people are a tad wary of our lying bullshit. That being said the sincere apology for past behavior is the amend. We may need to apologize more than once as we practice being actually sincere and to assure the amendee that we are indeed sincere but then it's enough already. We don't beg for forgiveness. We don't apologize forever. We don't listen to an airing of the grievances over and over and over. We are no longer pieces of garbage living in the garbage dump. We're fuck-ups, sure, but we're trying to fuck up with less frequency so having another person - to whom we've apologized - rehash our behavior forever is not going to cut it. We're looking forward with optimism and confidence and listening to someone detail our mistakes repeatedly is a hindrance and not a help.

Bankrupt Idealists

". . . most alcoholics are bankrupt idealists."

Idealist:  A person who is guided more by ideals than practical considerations.

Idealism:  The practice of pursuing ideals, especially unrealistically.

This is a great fragment of a great passage from The Big Book.  This was me.  Shooting for the stars while not taking care of the mundane aspects of living.  Wanting to bring peace and serenity to all of mankind while cutting someone off on the highway or ignoring the young person making my coffee.  Idealism is great.  I still shoot for the stars but I don't forget to take a shower at the end of the day.

"It's none of our business about your drinking.  We're not up here trying to take any of your rights or privileges away from you.  Now, if you don't want it, we'll not take up your time, and we'll be going and looking for someone else."

One of the greatest realizations for me in my A.A. recovery life is that nobody has an agenda as far as I'm concerned.  Nobody is telling me what to do.  Nobody is criticizing me.  People tell me how they behave and I can decide all by myself how I want to behave.  I relaxed almost immediately when I found out that I get to do what I want as long as it doesn't affect anyone else negatively.  I was free to find my own path.

A few hundred pages into one of the spiritual books I'm reading - a hundred pages of detailed, in-depth instructions and suggestions about how to enlarge one's life using meditation and centering techniques - I came upon a chapter discussing the value of psychotherapy, how valuable it came be, how necessary it is for a lot of us, how important it can be to have a trained medical professional help us clear up some of the wreckage of our past.  There's a sentence or two somewhere in the literature about the fact that professionals - medical, religious, social - can be of tremendous help.  Some of us have suffered in the past from circumstances out of our control that require more help than prayer and meditation can offer.  I always tell new people that if you fall down and break your arm you really should go to the hospital instead of finding an A.A. meeting and working on your acceptance skills.  First things first.  I need to be reminded from time to time that A.A. can't solve all my challenges nor does it want to or suggest that it can.

Exaggerated Self-Esteem

Pride: Most of the definitions of pride mention "reasonable self-esteem" but there are secondary definitions that characterize pride as "exaggerated self-esteem." There's an old joke about an elephant being a mouse built to an alcoholic's specification . . .

For pride, leading to self-justification and always spurred by conscious or unconscious fears, is the basic breeder of most human difficulties, the chief block to true progress.

Self-justification: When individuals rationalize their actions, beliefs, or feelings to maintain a positive self-image, even when those actions contradict their values or beliefs.

Boy, that's a doozy of a definition. Boy, that sounds like me when I was running and gunning, vaguely aware that what I was doing was none too smart but doing it anyway. "I'm on LSD and I've downed a twelve pack . . . but I'm good to drive!" This was usually spoken with bright optimism.

Being convinced that self, manifested in various ways, was what had defeated us . . . 

Pride slips in to justify our excesses.

The Bible defines pride as something a lot more sinister: an excessive and sinful self-regard, often characterized by arrogance, haughtiness, and a rejection of authority. It implies that pride is self-worship. It's one thing to be proud of an accomplishment and another altogether to refuse to admit to any faults or poor behavior because I think I'm better than you so I must be doing a lot.

My perception is that a lot of my personal spiritual growth has revolved around an expanding awareness of self. I was too aware of my own self pre-recovery - which is bad enough in and of itself - but my awareness was jacked. It was an illusion, a hallucination, a wraith. I don't know who's self I was aware of but it wasn't mine because the self I was reviewing was not acting the way I was acting. I was imagining a self that wasn't my own self and if you had showed me a video of that non-existent self I would have thought "What an asshole." That's where pride steps in! Exaggerated self-esteem! What's the matter with that? Who's got a problem with that? THAT'S the asshole, not me.

The Big Book Speaketh

 Self-righteousness, the very thing we had contemptuously condemned in others, became our own besetting evil.  This phony form of respectability . . . 

Self-righteous: Characterized by a certainty, especially an unfounded one, that one is totally correct or morally superior.

After the leveling blow that definition delivered to my head I'm going to have to spend some serious time getting up off the carpet. And I love the addition of "phony" to the definition.

Phony: Represented as real but actually false; intended to deceive.

I'm going to have to stop looking up these definitions or I'm going to end up in the hospital. The brilliance, the touch, it's so amazing that many of us use the phrase "divinely inspired." I don't know about the divinely part but there does seem to be a touch of the otherworldly in the text.

As psychiatrists have often observed, defiance is the outstanding characteristic of many an alcoholic. 

Defiant: Showing a disposition to challenge, resist, or fight; proudly refusing to obey authority.

Ever wonder why we have no leader in our meetings who can compel anyone to do anything beyond following standard social niceties like not peeing on the floor or playing rap music loudly on a boom box while someone else is talking? No one comes in to The Rooms eager to listen. We come in eager to shoot holes in anything anyone says that we don't like, which is pretty much everything. We don't do what any member says until we've tried - and failed at! - absolutely everything else there is to try.

Selfishness - self-centeredness!  That, we think, is the root of our troubles.

Self-centered: Preoccupied with oneself and one's affairs; to be self-centered is to believe that everything is about you without giving due consideration and attention to others.

Yeah, there aren't any self-centered people in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not a one.

Who's The Wise Teacher?

"A wise teacher calls forth the strength and wisdom of the student.  When we are supported in this way we realize how much of spiritual life is our growing ability to give.  In this spiritual life, what finally makes us happy is not what we get, but what we can give, what we can give to a community and what we give or ourselves."

Boy, the more I explore and expand my spiritual program the more I believe that everything can be distilled down into smaller and smaller bits and pieces.  What am I learning?  That it's all about making the most of the moment I'm in, that living in the future or the past is a useless exercise.  That the more I think about myself the more miserable I am, that the act of giving, selfless giving is deeply satisfying.  That I should seek to love rather than be loved, comfort rather than be comforted, and - maybe most importantly - understand rather than be understood.  So if I'm living in the moment, thinking of others and what I can bring to them instead of what I can take from them, then I'm doing pretty good.

Now, I just need to stop thinking that I'M the wise teacher.

Be Present

The whole point is to be present.  This is the goal in its entirety.  This is all I really need to focus on.  Good or bad, pleasant or painful, be present.

From my Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield I often see the parallels between a spiritual practice and recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous:  "With commitment we bring our full energy to follow a path and its discipline, such as prayer, through its inevitable difficulties and confusions.  In it we learn to trust The Fellowship, its principles, and ourselves in deeper and deeper ways.  We are asked over and over, to persist in its development, to stay with it, to give ourselves to it, to bring our full heart and energy to the practice.  The Dalai Lama says we can best tell if our practice is working by looking at its results after five, ten, or twenty years."

Now THAT'S commitment to the cause.  Risking the possibility that after twenty years something isn't working.

I mention often that I'm a terrible athlete.  I found that I was more successful in sports when I was simply in better shape than you were.  I didn't have to be more talented physically if I could outrun you.  After ten years of inactivity and a whole shit ton of Winston 100s and bags of weed I decided I'd start to run again.  I made it about a hundred yards before I began to believe I'd swallowed a package of razor blades.  My lungs were pretty much shredded.  The fact that I continued to run and eventually got to the point where I could run longer distances and more effortlessly at that was a testament to my faith that I could reverse some of the pulmonary damage I'd done over the last decade.  This is like A.A.  I tell new people that it really can be effective.  It really does work for a lot of people.  It's rarely a quick process and this is so frustrating that many - or even most - of us fall by the wayside before we get to a place of peace and contentment.

Street Sweeping Seaweed

Some will object to many of the questions posed, because they think their own character defects have not been so glaring.  To these it can be suggested that a conscientious examination is likely to reveal the very defects the objectionable questions are concerned with.

I did not/do not/will not ever enjoy taking a good, long, honest look at my own behavior and my own motivations because I'm afraid of what I might find there. Nobody likes to admit their faults. No alcoholic, especially. We've behaved badly much of the time and have found it easier to just pretend we haven't. And when I find another person to be foul and distasteful one of these close examinations inevitably shows me that I possess some of the selfsame defects that are so revolting when I perceive them elsewhere.

We are there to sweep off our side of the street realizing that nothing worthwhile can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do.  His faults are not discussed.  We stick to our own.  We have made our demonstration, done our part.

It's SO much easier to blame someone else and it's so SO much easier to dig at the weak spots in their character and behavior. I can spot a fault in another person at a thousand yards, at night, in a driving snowstorm, with my eyes closed, more easily than I can perceive them in myself. We're taught to admit where we're wrong, apologize for the slight or insult, and then to start behaving better. Saying I'm sorry is a poor beginning if I continue to act like a dick. "His faults are not discussed." Try to wiggle out of that one with some clever rhetoric. "We stick to our own." There is no nuance there. We look at ourselves and leave the other person clean out of it.