Making Amends

 We continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.  We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past.  We have entered the world of the Spirit.  Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness.  This is not an overnight matter.  It should continue for our lifetime.  Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.  When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them.  We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.  Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.  Love and tolerance of others is our code.  We have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol.

SuperK will remind me how stubborn I am. I dig in my heels and disagree with this sentiment. She remarks that I don't often admit that I'm wrong. I usually say: "What? I was wrong about something? Give me an example. Give me more than one example and be specific, backing up your contention with written information. Because I think you're mistaken." This is not a funny thing to say in her opinion, especially because when she quickly begins to reveal her evidence I put my fingers in my ears and start yelling: "Whooo! Whooo! Whooooo!" or I turn up the Black Sabbath real loud. And, the kicker, the punch to the balls, the knife in the back, is when she points out that I never say I'm sorry when I am wrong . . . which brings us back to the problem that I'm never wrong so what's a boy to do? Once long ago, on a distant planet in a fawaway universe, in another time and dimension, I quipped: "Well, if I'm ever wrong I'll apologize" but this went so poorly for me that I don't say it anymore. I think it, of course, but "restraint of tongue and pen" after all.

While I did enjoy writing that paragraph which has far too much truth in it to be dismissed outright I do strive to recognizing my faults and errors immediately and correcting them as soon as I can. I want a clean slate. I don't want to have to avoid anyone. I want to be in the realm of the Spirit, to spend my time helping other people instead of impeding their forward progress, to develop a code of love and tolerance. We grow and talk things over and ask for help - from our fellows and from our Higher Power - and continue this for a lifetime, recognizing that the quick fixes of alcohol and drugs are no longer an option.

"We have ceased fighting anything and anyone!" We have to, or it kills us.

You Could Do Worse Than Mr. Peanut

I'm always trying to balance the tension between striving versus straining and struggling and forcing things.  This is one of the Themes of My Life.  I think about this balancing act when I'm trying to do almost everything.  Am I pushing forward or am I using my big sledgehammer to pound a square peg into a round hole?  I don't want to put out this fire because it's so integral to who I am.  Who would I be without this engine revving high?  I cannot imagine a laid-back Seaweed.  It would be weird.  But, on the other hand, I have so many self-inflicted injuries caused when I've repeatedly try to walk through a cinder block wall, face first.  I'm not great at learning lessons when I think I've got a good idea.  I'm terrible at listening to advice to other people when I've got my mind set on something.  But without this internal fire I'd have trouble getting things done.  

I want to get things done!

I wouldn't call this a mental illness.  Maybe a baked-in character trait?  I'm assuming I'll spend the  rest of my life learning how to deal with it.  I'm no longer trying to get over it.  Maybe I should burrow under it.  Maybe I should dress in a disguise to try to fool it.  Maybe Scrooge McDuck or Mr. Peanut.  Don't laugh - you could do worse than Mr. Peanut.

New Is Good

Some A.A. members are rascals and coyotes who trick and surprise new people; some are harsh taskmasters trying to whittle down ego and pride, others teach more through honoring and encouragement, nurturing the best in a fellow member; some lecture like a professor; and others can melt someone open with love and compassion.  But the greatest gift and the strongest power emanates from the sense of freedom and joy that comes from the more experienced member.

It's a basic principle of my spiritual life that I learn the deepest things when I'm in unknown territory.  Often it's when I feel most confused inwardly and am in the midst of my greatest difficulties that something new will open.   I awaken most easily to the mystery of life by exploring and challenging my weakest side.  I've been to sixty-five countries - a number of them more than once - and forty-eight states - and not just stopping in an airport on a brief layover - and I'm not done yet.  I don't want to go back and do something I've already done.  I've done it.  I want to do something new because new is challenging.  New is exciting.  I want to be challenged.  If I'm not challenged I get bored quickly.  And I say this while understanding that new can be frustrating.  I had to get in and out of a rubber zodiac bouncing on an ice-covered ocean and I was incredibly nervous the first time I did it.  I'm not coordinated at all and I kept playing an internal video of the guides trying to fish me out of water that was at approximately 32.07 degrees Fahrenheit.  But I did it!  It was a thrill of a lifetime!  

Serenity Now!

Continuing on yesterday's theme of combating that terrible sense of isolation I make it my purpose to remember something - anything - about each and every person I know/meet/encounter in the Rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.  In fact, with anyone, anywhere, at any time, I should be able to ask a pertinent question or share something about myself that's relatable to that person.  I see you.  I listen when you talk.  I want you to tell me how you're doing, really, and not always get that "I'm fine.  I'm good" response.  If you're fine that's great but if you're not I'd like to hear about it.  Really.  I really would like to know what's going on with you.  If you can't share your fears and pain and frustration then no one will be able to help you dig yourself out.

I have a friend in Alcoholics Anonymous who is relentlessly cheery and upbeat, or at least presents that face to the public.  Her sponsor - after hearing the response "I'm fine" one too many times - sighed and said: "If you don't tell me how you're doing I'm not going to be able to help you."  That was one of most trenchant and wise things she could have said.

I repeat the details of the Seinfeld episode where one of the characters would shout "Serenity now!  Serenity now!" whenever he was upset.  And the fact that he was clearly pissed when he was shouting this only makes the scene more delicious.  One of his friends was impressed, so impressed he, too, took up this chant, and it worked and it worked and it worked until it didn't, and then he destroyed a room full of computers.

His apology: "Let me tell you, George.  Serenity now.  Insanity later."  This is funny and this also has an uncomfortable amount of truth in it.

The Terrible Sense of Isolation

"What are we likely to receive from Step Five?  For one thing we shall get rid of that terrrible sense of isolation we've always had.  Almost without exception, alcoholics are tortured by loneliness.  Even before our drinking got bad and people began to cut us off, nearly all of us suffered the feeling that we didn't quite belong.  Either we were shy, and dared not draw near others, or we were noisy good fellows craving attention and companionship, but never getting it - at least to our way of thinking.  There was always that mysterious barrier we could neither surmount nor understand.  It was as if we were actors on a stage, suddenly realizing that we did not know a single line of our parts."  

The old pangs of anxious apartness.  There are some passages in our literature that - for me - stand on their own merits.  I find them so spot-on that they require none of my fairly shallow explanations.  The above paragraph from The Big Book was a solid two-by-four whomping to the side of my head.  It described how alone I felt before I got sober.  I felt like everyone else had a playbook for life and that I had a child's coloring book or one of those mazes printed on the back of a table placemat at a cheap chain restaurant: "Can you find the treasure?"  Any five year old could figure out how to manuever through the maze to get to the treasure but I had to admit: "No!  I can't find the treasure!  I can't find a pen!  My pen doesn't work!  And the treasure appears to be a bag of French Fries!"  I was lost.  I was clueless.  I was drifting around in a sinking kayak in the Arctic Ocean.

Describing the initial meetings or gatherings in Akron at Henrietta Sieberling's gate house: "The expression on the faces of the women, that indefinable something in the eyes of the men, the stimulating and electric atmosphere of the place, conspired to let him know that here was haven at last."

The buzz of the Keep It Complicated meeting as I walk down the steps into the fairly dingy and ordinary church basement.  It's really something.  It has a positive, excited tone.  It sounds good.  It sounds happy.  I know I was expecting a room full of dirty old men in trench coats.  Living a life of misery where the temporary relief of alcohol was the only thing I had to look forward to and then learning that I had to give that up was beyond terrifying.

Where Does It Go?

Impermanence - The fact or quality of being temporary or short-lived; the philosophical problem of change that is addressed by many religions and assumes the belief that all existence is temporary;  in Buddhism: everything that comes also goes.

But where does it go?

The uncertain and temporary nature of much of what we regard as reality is the foundation of impermanence. 

It's all going to go eventually.  Everything.  All of it.  This can be frightening to contemplate but mostly it's a liberating concept.  How can I waste time worrying right now, about something that is probably never going to happen, about something that has already happened, wasting this minute, when I'm going to lose it all anyway?  This is a message I prefer to pass along when someone is doing well, when it is merely irritating, than when things are falling apart, when the message can be frustrating and terrifying.  The powerlessness!  The only thing I can count on in life is change.  I love change.  I want change.  It drives me insane but it fills me up.  

The way I grew after Mom and dad died (Ed. Note: Autocorrect gave Mom a capital but left dad lower case.  Hmmmm.) remains a defining point in my life.  It really drove home the point that we're all destined for the dust bin.  It leveled me for a good three or four months,  in an epic leveling.  I can take a good, robust leveling but this one put me on the ground.  I was panicky.  I was bereft, unmoored, unhinged, for that period of time.  I could not rationalize my way out of the panic.  Knowledge was not helpful.  Trying to intellectualize the finality of death was one of the most fruitless, feckless things I've ever tried to do.  It made me painfully aware of the limits of the mind and the power of the emotions.

Stuff

Loving kindness is about me removing barriers to love that I've built within myself.  It's not transactional.  It doesn't demand or require a specific reaction or response from someone else.  It's my own personal freedom, showing me that I've learned to love myself, to like myself, to be comfortable in own skin.

Touch is healing.  I love to pat someone on the arm or shoulder when I walk by.  "I see you there."

Paying attention is the beginning of change.  Inventory shows us what we have.

Stillness shows us what is there.

We're no longer glued to our own internal Television set.

I have a responsibility to be better that . . . what?  I used to be?  The general negative, chaotic behavior of the world and it's inhabitants?  The world tends toward disorder.

You Are Not Alone

 I got a Happy Father’s Day wish from one of my A.A. daughters today.  I don’t have actual children so I can’t tell you how full this filled my heart.

I talk to the brand new people all the time before and after the meeting and I try to direct the guys with mid-range sobriety to introduce themselves.  There’s a dude right now with about three weeks of sobriety and he’s so wrecked and tentative . . . well . . . it really takes me back.  There’s a woman attending with about six months now who comes across as quiet and low-key and then I swap stories with her after the meeting and she’s quite the hellraiser in her personal life. I hope she stays around. I hope I get to see her grow into her own skin.

"Fearless compassion recognizes the inevitable suffering in life and our need to face the suffering in life and our need to face the suffering in order to learn. Sometimes only the fire of suffering itself and the consequences of our actions can bring us to deeper understanding, to feel kindness for all beings, and to liberation." Jack Kornfield

I'm often reminded how easy it is for one alcoholic to talk to another because - and this I can guarantee you - whatever you've gone through, whatever pain that you've had in your life, whatever wreckage you've caused, someone else has gone through the same thing and worse, and they're probably sitting in the meeting you're attending right now.

You. Are. Not. Alone!

Walked Through The Fire

"The ground for compassion is established first by practicing sensitivity toward ourselves.  True compassion arises from a healthy sense of self, from an awareness of who we are that honors our own capacities and fears, our own feelings and integrity, along with those of others.  It is never based on fear or pity but is a deep supportive response of the heart based on the dignity, integrity, and well-being of every single creature.  It is a spontaneous response to the suffering and pain we encounter.  It is our feeling of mutual resonance and natural connectedness in the face of the universal experience of loss and pain.  As our own heart is opened and healed, it naturally seeks the healing of all it touches.  Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings.  It allows us to extend warmth, sensitivity, and openness to the sorrows around us in a truthful and genuine way."

Jack Kornfield

Tantric:  Involving the doctrines or practices of Buddhist or Hindu tantras, in particular the use of mantras, meditation, yoga, and ritual.

Once again I find that the simple spiritual tools and principles that we use in Alcoholics Anonymous are the simple spiritual tools and principles that have been around for five thousand years.  Especially this idea that those of us who have been through a painful time of our lives, who have been tested by fire, burned to our inner core, are the people best situated to pass along a message of recovery to someone else.  In The Big Book we hear the skeptical and resistant newcomer say something along the lines of "Yes, that's me, I drink like that" over and over.  No one likes to be told what to do by someone who hasn't had to do that very same thing.

Boundaries

"Setting boundaries and limits, shifting from a dependant and entangling love to one based on mutual respect, learning to give while honoring one's own needs, all of these can entail a profound growth  in self-esteem and self-awareness that parallels the healthy development of self."

Jack Kornfield

I used to be such a shape-shifter with other people, constantly resizing myself to fit other people's expectations.  Now I don't really give a shit.

I like this idea of living a life of kindness and compassion while standing tall on my own merits.  I try to be nice but I'm through with letting the needs of others overwhelm my own.  I get that I should give more than get but . . . c'mon . . . enough's enough already.  I get a piece of pie, don't I?  Just not the whole pie.

Right Here, Right Now

Ephemeral:  Lasting a very short time; ephemerality is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly.

I just returned from a long trip that was spent hiking in rural areas of Scotland and then on an expedition cruise ship exploring the archipelago of Svalbard, an island chain that is awfully close to the North Pole.  First of all, it was cold.  Goddamn, I forgot how much I hate being cold!  But it was also glorious.  As I seek to find a deeper connection with my Higher Power I like to immerse myself in nature.  It's so beautiful that I can't question the existence of something bigger than myself.  And not being around other people helps, too.  There isn't that constant background hum and chatter of people talking about nothing.  How much of what we talk about is worth a shit anyway?

The other thing that I always find remarkable is that SuperK and I can live comfortably out of a couple of smallish suitcases for six weeks.  Don't get me wrong - we get to see each other in the same stuff over and over, stuff that isn't always that clean, but we have plenty of stuff.  I come home and look in my closet and wonder at how much crap is in there.  Jeebus, do I need twenty-five shirts?

I've grown to take great comfort in making my life smaller and smaller and simpler and simpler.  I take great comfort in knowing that it's all transitory and I don't mean for this to sound dark.  Everything is here but for an instant and then it's gone.  I know that I'm deeply loved and deeply appreciated by many, many people and this gives my life deep meaning but I've also come to realize that I'm going to go eventually and the memory of Little Stevie Seaweed will go, too, and probably  damn quickly.  Again, I find this comforting instead of unsettling.  It lets me concentrate on the moment and let all the rest of it go.  It's going to go, anyway, so why not get to work letting it go right now?  I don't have children so once I move along the memory of me is going to go in a hurry.  In five years?  Ten years?  Fifty years?  No one is going to remember me even if I leave a huge cache of stuff behind.  No one is going to want to read my journals or look at my knicknacks or ponder my pictures.

There were reindeer on Svalbard.  We came across the bones of a dead reindeer and the expedition guide pointed out that the teeth of this herbivore were so ground down that it probably starved to death which is a very common cause of death with reindeer.  My intial reaction is why the hell would God design an animal so that it would starve to death?  And then I thought that this is the nature of existence: birth, life, death.  Sometimes it's pleasant and sometimes it's violent.  Maybe the reindeer is looking down at us from reindeer heaven pitying the poor guy hooked up to tubes in a hospital, trying to extend his existence, desperately extend his existence, even though he's going to die anyway and his life isn't very pleasant, thinking: "Man, that looks terrible."

My interest in a spiritual existence has shown me that there are so many ways to look at What Comes Next.  Maybe nothing.  Maybe Heaven.  Maybe I come back as a bullfrog or artic fox or a calla lilly.  Maybe I come back as a rock star or a peasant in Russia.  Maybe everything just goes black although I find that unlikely and I totally reject the idea of Hell.  I think if I behave badly I suffer enough on earth so that a kind and benevolent God isn't going to roast me on a lake of fire for all eternity.  

At one point I was standing on the edge of a lake that formed as a result of glacier melt.  It was a bright day and the water was calm; so calm that the snow covered mountains behind it were reflected perfectly.  There was the sound of water trickling and a few birds and the waves hitting the skree on the "beach" a ways off but that was it and it was so staggeringly beautiful that I couldn't believe it.  I was able to be in that moment.  My hands and face were freezing and my shirt smelled like old socks but I still could not believe that the tableau in front of me existed and that I was there for it.

Not Glum Seaweed

"There you will find release from care, boredom, and worry.  Your imagination will be fired.  Life will mean something at last.  The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead.  Among the future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous you will make lifelong friends.  You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties, for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey.  Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life.  You will learn the full meaning of 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'"

At the conclusion of many meetings we read The Promises even though they sound so optimistic as to be implausible to a still wet behind the ears alcoholic.  It's worth pointing out here that the texts are full of Promises.  I like the above passage from the chapter "A Vision For You."  Pretty good vision.  Pretty good phrases, too, like "lifelong friends" and "wonderful ties" and especially "most satisfactory years of your existence."  Like most people I just assumed my life would be over once I deprived myself of drugs and alcohol.  I love the word "glum."  I thought I would be glum.  Then I read "We are not a glum lot" and thought how odd it was that someone used the word "glum" to describe an emotional state.  Look at how it's spelled.  Say it over and over again until it sounds stupid in your ears, until Semantic Satiation takes over and it doesn't even sound like a real word again.  Say it until you think "what the fuck is this guy talking about anyway, I thought we were discussing Promises?"

See?  See how fun this is?  See how this fits right into the concept of a most satisfactory life?  That I'm able to waste some time writing this crap and that I find it most satisfactory?

Glum:  Sullen or gloomy; dejected; morose.

The Hand of Doom

 "He cannot picture life without alcohol.  Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it.  Then he will know loneliness such as few do.  He will be at the jumping off place.  He will wish for the end."

This passage probably sounds hyperbolic to people without a drinking problem but there are few passages in The Book that resonate more deeply with me.  The very last time I drank I could not get drunk and I was not able to sink into oblivion.  I was aware of the desperation of my drunken condition with absolutely no sense of release or relief.  It was the first time that this had ever happened that I can recall.  The release from the sense of doom that hung over my head was getting shorter and shorter as I neared the end of my drinking but I always got at least a momentary release.  This time . . . no.  It did not come.  I was so drunk I was incapacitated.  I couldn't walk or talk coherently but this time I didn't get to the place where I didn't give a shit that this was the case.  I was as miserable with the alcohol in me as I was stone cold sober.

Those of us who grew up with televisions that relied on cathode ray technology will remember what happened when the power was switched off:  the picture collapsed toward the center from the periphery until there was just a tiny spot of light at the center of the screen . . . then it would blink off.  Total darkness.  That's what it felt like at the end for me.

Whaddya Ya Got For Me?

There are traditionally three kinds of giving detailed in Buddhist philosophy: tentative giving, brotherly or sisterly giving, and royal giving.

I use the word transactional to describe how I used to approach giving.  I wanted something back.  I'm not a chump.  If I give you something I better be getting something in return and something of similar worth.  Don't take advantage of me, man.  It was in Alcoholics Anonymous groups that I first learned about giving with no expectation and - most importantly - that this is the source of real contentment: giving is its own reward.

"Because our inner experience is still one of need, giving is usually done with a subtle expectation of getting in return.  Alcoholics Anonymous groups often use the term codependence to describe such misuse of generosity, in which our unskilled assistance helps others avoid facing the true difficulty in their life.  There are also people who have trouble saying no, no matter what is asked of them.  After many years of this they find themselves filled to the brim with resentment without understanding how they got that way."

More Promises . . . So Many Promises . . .

"We realize we know only a little.  God will constantly disclose more to you and to us.  See to it that your relationship with God is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others.  This is the Great Fact for us."

I have a young friend in my morning meeting who is trying to settle into a career.  She left a job selling alcohol to one selling energy drinks, a more appropriate position, granted, but she didn't enjoy the new work and decided to take an offer with a milk company not long after leaving her first job.  I relate to this Need for Speed, this desire to get more of what I want and avoid more of what is painful.  My  problem is that after I've prayed and meditated on a decision or action, after I've talked to friends and sponsors and trusted advisors, after writing about the choice I'm facing, I sometimes mistake my spiritual fitness - my perceived spiritual fitness - with some misguided guarantee that I'm going to get what I want and avoid what I don't want.  

Shee-it.  That's not how spirituality works.

The Bludgeoning

Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon become as open-minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions.  In this respect alcohol was a great persuader.  It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness.

Thirty eight years of meetings and I've never heard anyone say: "Everything in my life was great: wife loved me, kids worshipped me, superstar at work, plenty of money and a nice place to live, no troubles with the law outside of an occasional parking ticket . . . . what the hell - I think I'll go to Alcoholics Anonymous." We have been beaten into a state of reasonableness. We do not come into The Rooms on a winning streak.

Beat: Strike repeatedly and violently so as to hurt or injure, typically with an implement such as a whip or a club. (Ed. Note: I thought an implement was like a spatula or stir stick. Apparently it can also be a club for beating alcoholics.)

So it is by circumstance rather than by any virtue that we have been driven to A.A.  Chances are that the alcoholic has become convinced that he has more problems than alcohol, and that some of these refuse to be solved by all the sheer personal determination and courage he can muster.  A dependence on a higher power was their chief source of strength.

We were in a position where life was becoming impossible and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: one was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could, and the other, to accept spiritual help.

To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. 

Under the lash of alcoholism . . .  The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.  The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.  Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

Death or spirituality? THIS is a difficult choice?! We really ARE hardheads.

Recovering alcoholic: "Okay, here are your options. Keep drinking and end up dead, in jail, or a mental institution or accept some kind of spiritual assistance." Newcomer (long pause): "Can I get back to you on that?" Yeah, we're not the sharpest tacks in the box.

Why don’t you try some more controlled drinking?

Absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.

We alcoholics have lost the ability to control our drinking.  We know that no alcoholic ever recovers control.

However intelligent we may have been in other respects, wherever alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane.

Most of us have tried everything. Everything. Whatever you're thinking of trying that will enable you to keep drinking and drinking responsibly someone here has tried out. You're probably out of options but go ahead . . . try something else.

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

I Wish . . . I Wish . . .

 As I was going up the stair,                                                                                                                           I met a man who wasn’t there.                                                                                                                  He wasn’t there again today.                                                                                                                       I wish, I wish he’d stay away.

This is me.  I'm a nursery rhyme.  I'm mad at people who aren't there and then I don't want them to come back and this makes perfect sense to me.

No, Seriously, I'm Not God?

 No man, we saw, could believe in God and defy him, too.  Belief meant reliance, not defiance. 

Defiance is an outstanding characteristic of alcoholics. (Editor's Note: I love the use of the word "outstanding." It almost sounds like we're praising our defiance. "Good job, Seaweed. Outstanding defiance.")

Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another’s conception of God.

Reliance: Confident or trustful dependence.

Defiance: Bold disobedience; open defiance.

We do talk a lot about God. We do allow everyone to come up with a Higher Power in whatever shape, guise, or form that makes sense to them. We do make it hard to argue about why it's impossible to come up with a working Higher Power. We are irritating as hell a lot of the time.

In belaboring the sins of some religious people, we could feel superior to all of them.  Moreover, we could avoid looking at some of our own shortcomings.  This, of course, is the process by which instinct and logic always seek to bolster egotism, and so frustrate spiritual development.

We saw them meet and transcend their other pains and trials.  We saw them calmly accept impossible situations, seeking neither to run or recriminate. 

There are many, many references in the literature to our tendency to lump people into overly broad categories, to stereotype them. In any group you're going to find people in the middle and people lurking on the dark edges. If you want to find a reason to reject something you'll find a reason. The task is to find the good and set aside the bad, whatever your definitions of those categories might be. Quit focusing on the negative and start accentuating the positive. Which is a song, I think.

Knowledge was all-powerful.  Intellect could conquer nature.  Since we were brighter than most folks (so we thought) we could float above other people on our intellect alone. 

The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.

How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act.  We are certain that our intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly control our inner lives and guarantee success in the world we live in.  This philosophy of self-sufficiency is not paying off.  Plainly enough, it is a bone-crushing juggernaut whose final achievement is ruin.

Bone-crushing:  Powerful or constricting enough to crush one's bones; extremely painful, troublesome, or costly.

Juggernaut:  A massive inexorable force that crushes anything in it's path; a force considered to be merciless, destructive, and unstoppable.

Ruin:  The state of disintigrating or being destroyed.

Lots of very smart people never get sober.  Lots of people who have achieved a lot in the physical, material sense by working hard and applying their will in a fearsome boa constrictor death grip never get sober.  Lots of people who are too smart and too willful die of their disease.  No one too dumb to get it.

Wait a Minute . . . I'm NOT God?

This is the how and why of it.  First of all, we had to quit playing God.  It didn’t work.

We had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing.  God either is, or He isn't.

For an organization that insists it has a message which is spiritual in nature we do talk an awful lot about God with a capital G. It is a great conundrum. I see the whole God component as the source of recovery for most of us who claim Alcoholics Anonymous as our guiding light while simultaneously being the factor that drives more people away than any other. As a kid who grew up believing in a God I confess to struggling sometimes with this resistance. I get it if someone doesn't want to believe in some kind of official, rules-based God but to deny that there isn't some kind of power greater than my own self designing things or running things or overseeing things strains my credulity from time to time. As a scientist I've studied how the body works in detail and the complexity and beauty of the whole operation astounds me. To think this is somehow random is hard for me to do. But that's just me. I don't even talk in such generalities in a meeting. I don't want to give anyone an excuse to walk away from The Rooms even if I think that the excuses are sometimes flimsy.

Lack of power, that was our dilemma.  Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions.  In this respect alcohol was a great persuader.  It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness.

The minute I stopped fighting or arguing, I could begin to see and feel.  We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.  We are in the world to play the role God assigns.  Just to the extent that we do as we think he would have us, and humbly rely on him, does he enable us to match calamity with serenity.

Destruction: The action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists or cannot be repaired.

Calamity: An event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster.

Beat: Strike repeatedly and violently so as to hurt or injure, often with a club or whip.

Fight: Take part in a violent struggle involving the exchange of physical blows or the use of weapons.

Argue: To express diverging or opposite views, typically in a heated or angry way.

I think I'm just going to let the definitions speak for themselves as a rationale for trying to avoid finding a Higher Power to lean on.

‘Why can’t we take a specific and troubling dilemma straight to God, and in prayer secure from Him sure and definite answers to our requests?

We have seen A.A.’s ask with much earnestness and faith for God’s explicit guidance on matters ranging all the way from a shattering domestic or financial crisis to correcting a minor personal fault, like tardiness.  The thoughts that seem to come from God are not answers at all.  They prove to be well-intentioned unconscious rationalizations.

I get it that people who fight the concept of a "god" can take a look around and find religious figures who behave in non-godlike ways. It's not hard. There are plenty of flawed people in the world and some of them have a public presence so if you're looking for reasons not to do something you'll be able to find them. Personally, I think most of these folks have good intentions. Personally, I think I have good intentions. I have heard, however, that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms.

An Allergy and An Obsession

 Absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.

The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed. 

Why don’t you try some more controlled drinking?

The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us; first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on drinking, and then by an allergy of the body that insured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process.

. . . their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly hard to solve.

A beloved sponsor once recommended that I ask new people to read The Doctor's Opinion which helps explain what the problem is for alcoholics. We have an "allergy" to alcohol - we react to it in a distorted and exaggerated manner - and we have an "obsession" as well - once we drink our minds are drawn to more alcohol like a moth to a flame. We vaguely understand that we're going to die if we fly into the flame but this fear is overrriden by the desire to drink more. We are not like other people. We are definitely not like other people. We are so not like other people and it's the combination of allergy and obsession that's so confounding. We use the peanut allergy analogy a lot: someone eats some peanuts and has an allergic reaction. Their throat closes, they gasp for air, they almost die. Then . . . they go out to the peanut store and buy several large bags of peanuts in case someone "stops by" and wants to eat peanuts.

. . . so far as alcohol is concerned, self-confidence is no good whatsoever.

He has been convinced that he has more problems than alcohol, and that some of these refuse to be solved by all the sheer personal determination and courage he can muster.

 

The Rooms are full of smart, hard-working men and women who deal with life in perplexing and self-destructive ways.  Most of us find we can't think our way out of this mess.  We can't "buckle down" and solve the condundrum by "working harder" and using our willpower and intellect.  We're smart but we still can't find the inner resources to quit drinking.  It's baffling.  We can't figure it out.  We don't get it.  We're fucking confused as hell.

Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.  The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false.

I was anxious, confused child and young adult, drowning in worry and fear, and then I drank some alcohol and the world made sense just like that.  I was relaxed and confident and self-assured.  I was momentarily pissed that the adults had kept this marvelous solution to all of life's problems from me but a little more alcohol solved that resentment right quick.

True:  In accordance with reality.  (How great is THAT definition?)

False:  Incorrect.  (I'm LMAO here.); Not real, but made to look or seem real.

WAY Too Much Talk About Free Throws

"The Buddha changes his entire way of practice.  He began to nourish and honor his body and spirit.  He remembered that he could rest in the universe rather than fight it.  He realized that awakening is never the product of force but arises through a resting of the heart and an opening of the mind.  There are two parallel tasks in spiritual life.  One is to discover selflessness, the other is to develop a healthy sense of self, to discover what is meant by true self.  Both sides of this apparent paradox must be fulfilled for us to awaken.  We begin to see how our own defenses and the wishes of others have eclipsed a true grounding in our own deepest experience.  Gradually, we can cease to identify with these old patterns and allow for a healthier sense of self."

Jack Kornfield

Paradox:  A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well-founded or true.

Oh, yeah.  Develop a healthy sense of self while beginning a lifetime devoted to selfless behavior.  Good luck with that.

Here are some thoughts by the Buddha on growing a spiritual practice . . .  

"The Buddha very frequently described spiritual practice as the cultivation of good qualities of heart and character.  Repeated cultivation is a basic principle of most spiritual and meditative paths.  In repeated meditations we can learn how to skillfully let go of fearful or contracted identities.  Whatever we practice we will become.  We can choose to strengthen our courage, loving-kindness, and compassion, evoking them in ourselves through reflection, meditation, attention, and repeated training.

Repeated.  Practice.  Cultivation.  There isn't a lot of sitting still in these concepts.  Rather there's a lot of . . .  well . . .  practice.  Repeated practice.  I played basketball in high school.  I played because I was tall and not because I had any physical qualities that made me a good basketball player.  I couldn't jump very high but I was taller than you so I got the ball a lot.  I also couldn't shoot the basketball what with all of the opposing players slapping at the basketball and shoving me around and putting their hands in my face but I did get fouled a lot because I understood that if I was between you and the basket I either got the basketball or you had to foul me to get to the basketball yourself and this meant Free Throws!  I liked free throws a lot.  No one could fuck with you when you were shooting free throws and I shot a lot of them and I made almost all of them.  Most of the time I had more points from shooting free throws than I did making baskets and this is no small feat because you get two points for scoring a basket but only one for making a free throw.  I'm pretty good at math so I knew I had better not miss too many free throws if I wanted an impressive box score and even then I never had an impressive box score.  Guess what I did when I was in the gym?  I shot a lot of free throws.  I practiced making free throws.

Practice:  The act of doing something regularly or repeatedly in order to increase your skill at doing it.

This is why we call it spiritual practice.  Most of us have lived less than exemplary lives of selfish behavior and most of us find we can't turn around this kind of self-centered behavior without a lot of practice.

Get to work, man.

Intuition and Inspiration

 As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.  We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show.  We are in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity or foolish decisions.  We become much more efficient.  WWe do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.

In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. We are often surprised at how the right answers will come after we have tried this for a while.

We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

I remind myself that my Higher Power is a guiding force, a helping hand, a light shining through the murk and gloom. However, my Higher Power does not have a car or a phone or a bank account and has tasked me with the action-taking here on this mortal coil. I seek inspiration and intuitive thoughts but then I have to take action based on my own flawed and self-centered motives, or not take action as the case may be. This is how it is whether I like it or not. This is the human condition. I sense the presence of a god but I'm still a human, still subject to my many whims and foibles. I do the best I can. I sleep well.

Twisted Relationships and Total Inabilities

But it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most.  The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being.

Twisted: Forced out of its natural or proper shape; crumpled; (Of a personality or way of thinking) unpleasantly or unhealthily abnormal.

Total: Complete or absolute; including everything.

I've always been impressed with the inclusion of the adjective "total" in this passage; as in, we have no ability to form a healthy relationship with another human being. None. Zero. We took hostages or we prostrated ourselves to the will of others. We were never an equal. Never. We wanted to dominate or we allowed ourselves to be dominated. And isn't the word "twisted" a real beauty? Crumpled. I had a crumpled personality.

We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society.  Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap, or to hide beneath it.  This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relationship with any one of those about us.  Of true brotherhood we had small comprehension. 

Since defective relations with other human beings have nearly always been the immediate cause of our woes.

Defective: Not working properly.

Ha ha ha ha . . . . I enjoy the phrase "with other human beings." I like "immediate" and "woes." Woe is me! A defective relationship guy.

We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn’t control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn’t make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people . . .

Okay, I'm paying attention here: trouble, misery and depression, uselessness, fear and unhappiness . . . all good stuff, really good stuff. Why would I want to change my behavior and give up this stuff? Why did I ever think it was a good idea to continue my self-destructive behavior so I didn't have to give up this stuff? Good stuff!

Art, Baby, Art

 Criticism, a form of negative judgment, is absolutely out of our fellowship picture.

The practice of tolerance is a part of recovery.  It aids spiritual progress and helps us to control our emotions.  We do not believe that tolerance of improper situations makes good sense.  God gave us intelligence to determine between good and bad; therefore, we find as much harm in being tolerant of wrong thought or action as we find in intolerance of the right things.

I do not remember where I found these quotes so I was thinking of pretending they were my quotes but I don't think I'd fool many people. I'd fool Willie, of course - he's pretty stupid - but most of you would see right through my deception.

I continue to slowly, slowly make my way through a volume I bought at a thrift shop for $1.99 called The Reader's Digest of Great Painters. The book is divided into several sections and has about a page and a half on each painter with a few of the more noteworthy paintings or frescoes displayed. I have been using it as a starting point to dig a little more deeply into these masters, these portrayers of the existence of God or of some kind of higher power, if you will. Michaelangelo looked at a massive block of marble and saw his statue of The David encased within and understood that his task wasn't to carve a sculpture but rather to free the figure that already existed from its marble prison. C'mon, you're going to tell me with a straight face that this isn't a demonstration of the existence of something bigger than you? I mean . . . c'mon . . . give me a fucking break.

Once again this attempt of mine to use art, music, nature to grow my spirituality is working best if I don't try to overdo it, to remember everything, to understand everything, to look at every last damn painting the artist ever completed. I'm trying to wear the art world like a loose garment. Anyway, I finished a section on the Post-Impressionists and am starting to dabble in The Great Masters. We've all heard of Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci but several of these men are/were unknown to me. A dude named Giotto stopped me in my tracks as if I was shot with an elephant gun. I had the opportunity to see The David in person many years ago and it rendered me speechless. It was that profound an experience to see that expression of God right in front of me and the statue is big, man, I mean really huge.

Dynamite. Destruction. Destroy, destroy, destroy!

Resent:  A complex, multilayered emotion that is a mixture of disappointment, anger, and disgust; to show displeasure and hurt or indignation at (some act, remark, etc.) or toward (a person) at a sense of being injured or offended; to feel bitter or angry at something, especially because you feel it is unfair.

Unfair!  Unfair!  You're cheating!  I deserved that and you didn't deserve that!  Mom, he's cheating!

Resentment is common to all alcoholics.  We are never safe from it and as intangible as it may seem, it does pay off in material ways with destructive force and energy.  Resentment is dynamite to the alcoholic.  Resentment is pure mental drunkenness.

Dynamite! Destruction! Good words! Boom, boom, ka-boom!

It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.  From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have not only been mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.  

I like the word "destroy." Whew. I like the suggestion that resentment is the root cause of all forms of spiritual disease. Not some. Not a few. All. All is a lot.

We list people, institutions and principles with whom we were angry.  We ask ourselves why we were angry.

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness.  To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile.

Anger and futility and unhappiness, oh, my! Who in their right mind would want to give up those things? Squanderer! You squanderer! Squander away!

Squander: Waste in a reckless and foolish manner.

Has your life been any happier because of this resentment?

Taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. I'm guessing that maybe 10% of the people, places, and things that I've ever had a resentment against had any idea that they were on the receiving end of my resentment. Like the government cares if I resent paying my taxes. Yeah, that's going to change things.

He cannot afford to subject himself to self-pity because of its relationship to resentment and inferiority.

Few, if any, men or women escape this emotional monstrosity (jealousy).

I find it helpful to tease out the emotion of anger (a normal human attribute that none of us will ever completely get rid of) from the emotional time bomb of resentment (a normal human reaction if you're a self-centered, socially stunted, and emotionally immature alcoholic). Everybody gets angry from time to time but what are you gonna do with it? Explode? Yell and scream and belittle? Toss a punch? Ruin a relationship, a job, a just about everything?