It's Not MY Fault

I'm a defensive son of a bitch.  I play a mean defense while subscribing to the maxim that the best defense is a BIG offense.  Whenever I behave badly I have a tendency to cycle through a tried and true - albeit old and tired - process of justification.  The Big Book lays this out better than I ever could when they describe how we respond to the charge that our drinking is a problem.  We say I'm only hurting myself so leave me alone.  We say we're taking care of our obligations so we have a right to "have fun" in our down time.  We say we're drinking because of the behavior of other people.  We're not instigating - we're reacting.  Never admit a fault and when the fault is so apparent that it's embarrassing to pretend it's not then point the finger elsewhere.    

I will never forget the story of the Speeding Driver.  I've told this story so many times over the years and changed the circumstances so often to indulge whatever whims and flights of fancy are driving my actions that day that I no longer remember if it happened to me and someone passed these thoughts my way or if it happened to someone else and I spoke from high atop my lofty moral soapbox or whether I just made the whole thing up.  Anyway, someone gets a speeding ticket after blowing by an obvious speed trap, going 75 MPH in a 55 MPH zone.  Everyone around the driver is speeding, too, so it may be that the radar picked up an adjacent car.  Unlikely, but possible.  The driver has been on this road hundreds of times, always speeding, but never getting a speeding ticket.  Doesn't really make it okay to speed but does show the mindset: "I get away with this all the time so I'll get away with it again."  The aggrieved driver calls his sponsor who asks: "What was the speed limit?" and then, armed with this information, following up with: "How fast were you going?"  The final segment of this devastating trilogy was silence.

My initial reaction is usually to fight the charges.  If I can keep my trap shut long enough to avoid feeding my balls through the wringer I get to the point where I apologize and strive to do better.  That's my part.  That's all I should do.  Everything else is self-justifying bullshit.

Looking Inside Myself

"Do not be satisfied with hearsay or tradition, with legends or what is written in great scriptures, with conjecture of logic, or with liking for a view or disliking it, or saying, 'This comes from a great master or teacher.'  But look in yourselves.  We must be a lamp unto ourselves, we must find our  own true way."  The Buddha.  

Booda Booda!  Jambooda!

"Spiritual practice can never be fulfilled by imitation of an outer form of perfection.  This leads us only to 'acting spiritual.'  Our heart naturally longs for wholeness, beauty, and perfection, but as we try to act like the great spiritual masters, we impose their image of perfection on ourselves.  This can be very discouraging, for we are not them.  Doubts may arise in our spiritual practice.  This practice may feel more like manual labor than a labor of love, and the images of perfection we hold will leave us more discouraged with ourselves and our practice."  Jack Kornfield

"It is our very search for perfection outside ourselves that causes our suffering."   The Buddha, dude.

"Liberation arises when we are without anxiety about nonperfection."  The Third Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Longtan Chongxin

"Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath."  The Fourth Album by Black Sabbath

"Whether we agree with a particular approach or conception seems to make little difference.  Experience has taught us that these are matters about which, for our purpose, we need not be worried.  They are questions for each individual to settle for himself."  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

"The state of entropy of the entire universe, as an isolated system, will always increase over time."  The Second Law of Thermodynamics

I am amused and heartened by the consistency with which the idea that each individual needs . . . should . . . could . . . look inside and find an idea of greater power that works for them . . . makes sense for them . . . doesn't piss them off too much.  I'm too lazy to try to find the exact quote but the jist of it is that the Realm of the Spirit is wide and accommodating and that there's a great deal of ease and flexibility provided to each of us as we try to figure out a Higher Power that works.

Hanging On and Letting Go

"Sadness clings like dust particles, and makes us think there is no other way to feel than sad.  But what makes us sad?  Is there something tangible that we can deal with?  Or is it just everything - and yet, nothing in particular?  At times, there is a sorrowing of the soul, the deep-seated knowledge that all is not well, and things are getting worse.  No one respects anyone else and when will it cease.  How can we be happy when there is so much wrong around us?  This is our  chance to be a seed of happiness, a spark of hope, a star that someone can look to and follow out of a dark place.  Sadness is a symptom that is contagious - but so is faith and cheerfulness."  Cherokee Lady

Some things deserve to be remembered - others to be forgotten.  I need both - remembering and forgetting - to keep myself balanced.  Remembering some of what was wrong so as not to repeat it and forgetting some of what was right so I do not wallow in it.  Every day is a day of picking up and setting down, catching hold of what I want and letting go of what I do not need.  

It's What YOU Believe

So sayeth Jack Kornfeld: "To make spiritual practice come alive, we must discover within ourselves our own way to become conscious, to live a life of the spirit.  Religions and philosophy have their value, but in the end all we can do is open to mystery and live a path with heart, not idealistically, not without difficulties, but in the very midst of our humanness in our life on this earth."

So sayeth The Big Book:  "As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction."  

Alcoholics Anonymous was so aware that talk of God would be controversial that the founders came up with dozens of different ways to describe the whole Higher Power thing.  "You don't like God?  Fine.  How about Creative Intelligence?  Or Spirit of the Universe?"  I've met plenty of people who get their backs up when the word "God" is mentioned but I've never heard anyone pitch a bitch over "Spirit of the Universe."

Continuing: "Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God.  Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and effect the  contact with God."

I'm always struck by how often different philosophies and religions (not the monotheistic religions of course - Islam, Judiasm, and Christianity have rules, baby) encourage us to take a few breaths, relax, think good, peaceful thoughts, and see what pops up.  

That's God , baby, you did it.

Keep Talking

A brand new dude talked recently about having suicidal thoughts and runaway anxiety attacks.  This kind of thinking, although common in new people, is not normal and it is definitely not healthy.  This is not the kind of thinking one should keep to oneself.  I'm struck at how often people who have the courage to bring this stuff up are quick to brush it off by saying that they didn't have any serious thoughts about actually carrying it out, but I don't buy that.  I think it's a self-justification to try to gloss over the abnormal behavior.  Healthy people - reasonably healthy people - don't linger on these thoughts.  This isn't the same thing as a teenaged boy getting rejected by a teenaged girl and throwing himself on his bed, certain that life isn't worth living.  That's okay.  An adult man battling anxiety is not in a good space if he is thinking this through past the overly dramatic phase.  Planning on taking your own life is the first step in taking your own life and this is not a goal of our recovery program.  

The first thing is to talk about this with someone else.  Anyone else.  These thoughts, unspoken, can take on a life of their own and gain terrible power.  It's not hard to find someone in recovery who'll identify with anxiety and the occasional suicidal flight of fancy, as morbid a flight as it is - just touch the person to your left and to your right and you'll probably be two for two.  And just as importantly, go get some professional help.  I would never take medical or psychiatric advice from people in a meeting.  There were fifty people at this meeting and I know almost all of them and I am certain there weren't any doctors or counselors in there.  See a professional!  Our book talks about how much help is available from pastors, doctors, psychiatrists, and how rarely we ask for this help.  It also reminds us that these are controversial issues.

Art and Music and Nature and Hope The Dog God

I often think of coming to understand that wisdom is experience plus knowledge.  I know I talk about this a lot.  Maybe that's part of the aging process - winnowing down what's important, what's significant, to fewer and fewer things that have greater and greater importance.  Maybe that's why we have half a dozen short phrases hung on the walls of our meeting rooms.  Keep it Simple, One Day at a Time, Live and Let live, and Let go and Let God.  You could build a pretty good life on those four slogans.  Lotta "lets" in there.

When I was early in my sobriety I attended a men's spiritual recovery retreat a couple of times a year.  I took a lot of good from my Christian upbringing but was overly concerned with the threats and warnings, the demand that I do Good or suffer for all eternity on a Lake of Fire.  This was not a great message for an anxiety-ridden depressive going through puberty and trying to figure out who he was..  A Lake of Fire!  What the hell?  Who came up with this crap?  So I drifted . . . 

At one of the retreats the retreat master, a crowd favorite, Father Tim, spent some time talking about the Second Step and the trouble a lot of people have coming to terms with the concept of a Higher Power.  Backs stiffen, hair bristles, hands are thrown up in angry despair.  Father Tim made some hands-on suggestions.

Go outside.  Be outside in the natural world.  The retreat center was on a large campus with open fields and stands of trees, all of it bordered by a small river carved into the surrounding hills.  This is why monasteries were built on cliffs and in the mountains and by the ocean.  It's easier to feel awe when surrounded by such beauty.  Sit outside and listen.  Sit outside and feel the air on your skin.  No phones.

Listen to music.  Listen closely.  Pull up a video of a great guitarist or pianist and watch their hands move over the strings and keys.  I'm not a musician so I confess at being confounded and astounded that someone can make those kinds of sounds, can remember how to move their hands and fingers to make those kinds of sounds.  Look up the African Kora.  It looks like a cross between a harp and a banjo and a stand-up bass and had to have been formed in the mind of someone on mescaline.  It's incomprehensible to me that someone could see this thing in their mind's eye without a nudge from beyond.

Look at some art.  I know only a little about art but still the otherworldliness is apparent at a glance.  I looked at a few paintings by Paul Gauguin this morning.  I realize that what he painted came about after a lot of studying of perspective and colors and composition but he also clearly had a talent that was far beyond what anyone could teach.  He was largely ignored while he was alive - like a lot of great artists he was ahead of his time - but today he's recognized as a master.  I'd like to have one of his discarded paintings today.  I remember like it was yesterday strolling around a modern art museum in Helsinki, Finland several years ago and finishing our visit in a room that had three paintings by three of the great artists in the Impressionist Era - I can't even remember who the painters were - but these paintings blew the room up.  I'm sure the art in the rest of the museum was of a high quality but these were spiritual miracles.  It almost felt like they were illuminated by kleig lights.  Klaxons started blaring.  It was that obvious to us that these were several notches above.

And, no mention of a Higher Power is complete without the obligatory mention of Hope the Dog God.  That animal .  . . .   That animal is in the moment.  That animal has internalized what it means to love rather than be loved.  I can hear that animal screaming: "Omigod - it's Seaweed!  Omigod Omigod Omigod.  He's back!  I wasn't sure he'd ever come back!"  I could hit that animal with a stick and it would beg for my forgiveness.  You trying to tell me my Higher Power isn't lurking behind those Mexican street dog eyes?  

Bullshit.

Doomed to an Alcoholic Death

"That's what this book is about.  It's main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.  Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, are not sufficient, they fail us utterly."

I often ask newish people if they know why the Big Book was written.  The answer, inevitably, is no, not really, at which point I suggest they begin reading from the beginning until they find the answer.  Which comes on page 45 in the chapter There Is A Solution."  I don't think they very many people follow my suggestion but maybe it gives a few of them a start on the text.

"To be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face."  This always cracks me up.  Another reminder that our desire to drink is stronger than anything.  Death . . . or a spiritual awakening?  How is that a question, even?  Insanity, a mental institution, a slow, lingering spiral downward, or finding a power greater than yourself?  Incredibly, astonishingly, at the beginning most of us hesitate at the choice.  This insanity is in the same vein as my rationale that I was too busy to dedicate myself full time to my recovery while acknowledging that I always found the money, I always found the time, and I always ignored the consequences when I wanted to drink or use.  Few and far in-between were the times when I was not able to justify my addictions.

Trying to Mind My Own Business

To wit and as an example . . . 

I am back swimming again after a three year abscense.  I am pleased to say that it took me a couple of strokes to confirm that it is indeed like riding a bike.  Today, Sunday, I sat in the hot tub for a few minutes to loosen up before crouching down on one side of double lane to catch the attention of a woman who was swimming there.  When she reached the end I inquired as to whether I could share the lane.  She was one of those fit, grimly determined people that make up a portion of the members of any exercise facility, sort of slogging along joylessly and vaguely dismissive of your efforts, arrogant about theirs.

"Sure," she said.  "Did you just get out of the hot tub?"

When I answered in the affirmative she added: "Maybe you should take a shower first."

Several possible responses occurred to me:

1.  Nodding and then beginning to swim, saying nothing.

2.  Responding: "Maybe you should mind your own business."

3.  Escalating the whole matter with this clarification: "Maybe you should mind your own fucking business."

4.  Asking if she worked there - no? - then wondering if she had appointed herself as the pool police.

5.  Walking ten paces to the shower and rinsing off.

I'd say that about 34% of the people who get in the pool don't rinse at all and I'd say one in twenty rinse after sitting in the hot tub.  I mean . . . you're in a hot frappe of chemicals and human wastes and sweat and then you lower yourself into a warm frappe of chemicals and human wastes and sweat so I'm not sure what the post-soak/pre-swim rinse accomplishes anyway.  I smiled wryly and walked over to the shower, turned it on, waited until she began to swim again, and then dropped into the pool next to her, hoping that the hot chemical residue would drift into her lane and cause her to develop ocular ulcers or scorch some other sensitive part of her body.

Honestly, I didn't really care.  What do I care?  It took me less than a minute to salve her outsized sense of self-righteousness and at no cost to myself.  "Seek to understand rather than be understood."

Terrifying Step Work

I was at a meeting yesterday where the topic sort of devolved into a discussion of the Fourth Step - a through and searching personal inventory, written down on paper, using words, to prepare for the terrifying Fifth Step where we speak words, out loud, to a living human person who isn't deaf and understands the language that we're using - and also the Ninth Step - making direct amends to those we had wronged but only if there is no collateral damage of innocents.  No one comes into Alcoholics Anonymous eager to do these Steps.  No one who has been sober for any length of time whatsoever discounts how incredibly valuable doing them has been to their peace of mind.

"But of the things which really bother and burn us, we say nothing.  Certain distressing or humiliating memories, we tell ourselves, ought not to be shared with anyone.  These will remain our secret.  Not a soul must ever know.  We hope they'll go to the grave with us.  . . .  (But) this practice of admitting one's defects to another person is, of course, very ancient.  It has been validated in every century, and it characterizes the lives of all spiritually centered . . . people."

I had a wonderfully peaceful Quiet Time prior to this meeting.  One of those times where I was able to sit quietly and be where I was.  This is not an easy skill to acquire -  for me, anyway - and it has taken a long time and much practice to attain.  But, man, to sit quietly!  I did not know or understand how wonderful an experience that is, sitting in the moment and not jetting out into the future where terrible things are happening to me or wallowing in the messy bogs of my past, relitigating old grievances and regretting not letting loose little cruel witticisms that didn't occur to me at the time to justify how terribly I had been treated.  And I was aware, listening to people talk about these Steps, how they were so necessary for me to get to that place.

Lotta work, this recovery and spiritual growth business.  Well worth it.