There's That Hairy Monster Again

I had a long conversation yesterday with a young man who grew up in foster homes, and to this day doesn't know who is parents are.  Almost every time we speak he surprises me with some behavior that I should have known about - that it would have been healthy for him to tell me about, to tell someone about, anybody, some homeless dude just to hear himself talk - but that I did not, in fact, know about.  I don't think he's trying to hide anything or to deceive anyone - I think it doesn't occur to him to talk to another person about stuff that's going on.  For instance, he seems to have problems with a fear of abandonment.  No shit, right?  To be abandoned as a child, to feel unloved, to be raised in a chaotic environment, and then try to sustain a healthy relationship with other people?  I see him careen between taking hostages and continuing to pursue relationships that clearly aren't working.  None of this makes him a bad guy or a fatally flawed one but I'm continually surprised when he casually mentions spending time with someone who behaved in a way - not long ago - that convinced him the relationship was over.  I find myself saying: "Wait . . . what?  You did what?  With that person?"  I'm more surprised that he isn't keeping me in the loop over his behavior than with the behavior itself.  I understand why two incompatible people who are driving each other mental keep returning to their own conjoined, codependent mental institution but why he doesn't think to loop me in is the cipher.  I don't think he's worried that I'll tell him not to do something - I think it just doesn't occur to him to talk to someone else about what he's doing. 

I will occasionally shoot off a text to a young woman whose father is an intractable homeless dude, a man who has been homeless for a long time and doesn't seem interested in changing, a man who is uninterested in being part of her life.  So guess what?  She's a fiercely independent person, not at all needy, who manages her life just fine most of the time.  But, on occasion, I'll get a long reply full of drama and anger that shows me that she is not used to including anyone else in what's going on.  Not me, not anyone, and I see how this isolation can really be a hindrance to a calm, collected day.   

I'm convinced that we all get used to not having something and then if we get it we're surprised at how much we missed it and how satisfying it is to have it.

Misery: A condition of great wretchedness or suffering; extreme unhappiness.  It's not dropping your ice cream cone - it's having a hairy monster steal your ice cream cone, eat it in one bite, and then kidnap you and carry you off to his cave.   

Suffering: When painful emotions get activated in response to a difficult circumstance; the state of undergoing pain, stress, or hardship.

I read these two excellent words in The Big Book recently.  When I staggered into A.A. I was suffering in misery.  Misery is what I was enduring.  I believe the old aphorism which states: "Pain is inevitable - suffering is optional."  Today this kind of wisdom, hard-earned, often makes me immune to the suffering - for the most part or at least helps me manage it - when difficult things happen to me.  I can feel the pain but I have the tools to deal with it so I don't descend into long-term suffering.

Timing Is Everything

I've been attending meetings for a couple of years now with a man who I'm friends with . . . almost friends with . . . friendly with . . . some combination of all that.  He's a smart guy with a quick wit who likes to joke around but isn't quite as funny as he thinks he is and whose timing and content needs some work . . .  some serious work.  A gentle jibe spoken to the right person at the right time can add to the laughter in The Rooms while it might appear offensive written down on a sheet of paper with no context provided.  He always tends toward humor I find pretty juvenile, more suited to middle-school boys trying to find their way in the world and not to a grown-ass man.  This is okay, too, and not that unusual.

I think he's trying too hard.  When he's not in Show Time mode he comes across as a gentle, thoughtful man.  Case in point: we have a woman who attends our meeting from who is bursting with nervous energy.  She doesn't have ants in her pants - she has fire ants in her pants, pissed fire ants, pissed ravenously hungry fire ants.  Man, I get it, I really do.  I'm also an ants-in-my-pants kind of guy.  She's a little sporadic in her attendance so many of us can see that she would probably be happier if she could get some of her fire back in the fireplace instead of incinerating the kitchen curtains, but that's her call and I'm glad to see her in any case.  Anyway, my friend, trying to be funny, compared her to Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies.  Granny was a firecracker.  Granny blew the doors off everyone else in the show.  Granny was a burn-the-house down kind of firecracker.  I get the reference and I believe that - maybe - in the right circumstances and with exquisite timing our member would have laughed at this but the comment annoyed her.  My point: clever, witty, accurate joke that landed with a clang.

I've been telling this dude lately that I've really noticed a change in him, that I believe The Program is sinking in more deeply.  I'm seeing more of the kind, gentle man and less of the trying too hard, inappropriate man.

Here's a Seaweed analogy because my wife loves my analogies.  I can hear her rolling her eyes from the back of the house as I type this.  That, of course, never stops me so here's the analogy.  I was walking along the boardwalk yesterday during a spirited high tide.  There were places where the pavement was wet so I knew to keep an eye on the strength and the fury of the incoming surf.  A woman, clearly not a local, had strayed too close to the surf while she was trying to get some pictures of the big waves and did not notice a big one coming in which splashed over the  barrier and absolutely soaked her.  A water dripping off her hair soaking.  A number of us stopped and looked, some smiles because slipping on a banana peel and falling on your ass is kind of funny, but I approached her and asked if she was okay.  She was trying to laugh it off, more embarrassed than anything, calling herself an idiot over and over.  I assured her that she wasn't an idiot, that I had seen this happen many times over the years.  She handed over her dripping phone when I asked if I could dry off the salt water running off the screen.  After a few moments I told her: "Well .  .  . you made my day."  She laughed pretty hard.  But, if I had said this immediately, without coming over and being nice and helpful and sympathetic, I would have sounded like a major asshole.  My timing was spot on and it came after a burst of kindness.  I wanted her to know I was laughing with her and not at her.

Although I was kind of laughing at her.

Ha! Ha! I Mean . . . Do'h!

I'm asked from time to time why I continue to attend A.A. meetings when I'm no longer an active drunk?  I'm tempted to say: "Because I'm still an active asshole."  While that quip is meant mostly as a joke there's more than a touch of truth clinging to it.  To wit: the clerk at my grocery store who annoyed me over a trifle or the woman who brought her own personal boom box into my public pool, provoking me to behave in an incredibly childish and immature way by trying to splash water onto her audio equipment.  (Ed. Note: After I did this incredibly childish and immature thing I told on myself at a meeting.  Then . . . I've never seen her again.  Life is funny that way.  Not "ha-ha" funny but "D'oh!" funny.)  I'm grateful that I don't often pursue my minor grievances into such extremes of behavior but am aware that I'm aggrieved over minor things more stridently than I'd care to be.  

This has reminded me of a story a man told about a contentious relationship he had with a neighbor.  It was suggested that he might get some relief if he prayed for this guy every day for two weeks.  It worked - he felt some relief and was able to put the resentment behind him only to come home and see a For Sale sign in his neighbor's yard.  Do'h!  God is not a little funny - God is damned funny.

And I did share with my home group - out loud, when other people were in the room, in the language commonly spoken in the region - the story of the grocery store clerk who annoyed the holy shit out of me by doing something incredibly inconsequential.  Most of the time if I just chill and breathe and shake my internal head the pique flows away.  But I find that my community keeps me on the straight and narrow.

Art!!

 SuperK is the painter in the family.  I'm the writer.  I'm using those two terms generously.  She isn't selling $10,000 paintings in trendy SoHo galleries and I'm not super busy with book signings at this point.  But both of us are trying to tickle our creative sweet tooth - this is a good example of crashing parts of two totally distinct idioms together and ending up with an incomprehensible phrase - and staying engaged with our creative sides.  I think it's important to exercise all parts of our being, and creating something new, all by yourself, whether or not it's worthy of a book signing or a gallery opening is not really the point.   We learn to take care of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual lives.  We learn to nurture all aspects of our being.            

There's a new guy at my meeting who's a professional photographer.  I mean "professional" as in he traveled and took pictures for magazine publications, photographed weddings, took portraits, and had showings at galleries.  Today, trudging the early road of sobriety, he has a job taking pictures of newborns and their parents at a local hospital.  He's content doing this.  It cannot help but be satisfying being around people who are experiencing such a joyous moment.  I suspect, however, that at some point this kind of work won't be as satisfying as it is today.  I'm not a photographer but it sounds repetitive and not very challenging.  

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.  Maybe just a personal reminder that I have to take care of my whole being.  I don't sit in front of The TV all the time.  I think the average American has The TV on six or seven hours a day.   I don't know how you do that.  I couldn't do that when I was drinking and was too drunk to get up off the couch.  When I compose a post on my blog I usually do some initial writing and then come back to the page later to review what I've written, and I almost always change some phrases around so they're more to my liking.  To me they sound better and I'm really writing for me.  I so much appreciate that you're reading this - it fills my heart up tick-full - but the pleasure is rereading my final draft and thinking: "Hey, that's good - that's what I was trying to say."

SuperK's work as a painter has helped me understand art in a much more significant way.  She tells me often that I have a pretty good eye with a camera.  I believe that because of our talks about perspective and composition and subject I can now see - sometimes, anyway - why a photograph I've taken catches my eye in a way that most of them don't.  Any photographs I take that look good can be chalked up to dumb luck but it's gratifying to understand more fully why a picture is pleasing or why it doesn't grab my attention,         

Not Superior or an Authority of Any Sort

I find myself often talking to alcoholics who are not really All In with A.A.  I'm okay with this for the most part.  It's an odd philosophy, when you think about it, incorporating tons of different concepts and beliefs and practices that have been culled from ancient philosophies and religions and belief systems.  What strikes me is that if you don't have some kind of community to lean on then recovery is harder and sketchier.  I cannot imagine trying to recover all by myself.  I urge people to do something with other people - A.A., recovery groups, fraternal organizations, church, whatever.  There's nothing more suspicious than an alcoholic by himself, thinking.  With a lot of these people I find it's me reaching out to them and not the other way around even though the other way around is how it works best.  Why is it so hard to ask for help?  From people who have made such a mess of things that they clearly need help?

We try never to talk to newcomers from a position of superiority or authority.

I was at our local farmer's market today.  Normally, if my tab includes some change I wave it off, let the local farmer have it.  I don't want a quarter in my pocket.  I don't know what to do with change.  I think we should ban change.  I think everything should cost one dollar or multiples thereof.  Today, for reasons unknown to me, I went ahead and took the fifty cents in change, and as I was leaving the stand I walked by a little girl of ten or so who bent over and picked up a dime from the ground, and was obviously pleased at this found money.  As I walked by I held out my hand and said: "Here." and dropped the fifty cents on top of her dime, and just kept walking, not saying a word.  She was with a couple of adults when I did this and as I walked off the look of amazement on her face was just incredible.  Made my day.  Cost me a whole four bits.

I STILL Want to be God

"Sometimes we are told in A.A. not to try and learn the reasons for our drinking.  But such is my nature that I must know the reason for things, and I didn't stop until I had satisfied myself about the reasons for my drinking.  To my way of thinking, alcoholism is a state of being in which the motions have failed to grow to the stature of the intellect.  What is causing us to drink, therefore, is a sense of inadequacy, a childish vanity to be the most popular, the most sought after, the mostest of the most.  I wanted a cosmos, a universe all my own which I had created and where I resigned as chief top resigner and ruler over everyone else.  Okay, okay - I wanted to be God."

Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous P. 535  

Love this passage.  There is nothing like an emotionally immature and stunted child who believes he or she is too smart for this world.  I dunno . . .  I took a drink and I took a drug and it did something to me that it doesn't do to the vast majority of people.  I know this because I talk to other alcoholics and they report the exact same reaction.  It lights up some weird pleasure/pain center in my brain that makes me go back over and over even when I know that the effects are injurious.

"For me, A.A. is a synthesis of all the philosophy I've ever read, all of the positive, good philosophy, all of it based on love.  I don't care too much about personal fame or glory, and I want only enough money to enable me to do the work I feel I can perhaps do best.  (Ed. Note: Boy, sounds like bullshit to me . . . )  The more you give, the more you get.  The less you think of yourself the more of a person you become."

Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous P. 542-3

Desperation Drinking

"So many wonderful things have happened to me that at times I can't believe this is me.  I think I am dreaming and will soon wake up."  

Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous P. 529  "Another Chance" 

We have "The Promises" and then we have all kinds of promises sprinkled throughout The Book.  A lot of us believe that if we had been given the chance to specify what our lives would be like after we got sober that we would have sold ourselves short.  Moreover, we would have concentrated on things - carnal things, material things, superficial things - that don't have the oomph that we expected.  They end up feeling empty, hollow, with no real meaning behind them.  They don't seem worthy of all that effort and angst.  I like how the woman in this story expresses her gratitude for general joyousness.  And that there is no mention of Stuff.

"Perhaps a better way of saying it is that, on that day, with that decision, I no longer fought drinking as an escape.  Rather, I embraced it.  Things weren't going as I thought they should, for my greater enjoyment, comfort and fame, therefore, if the universe wouldn't play my way, I wouldn't play at all."

Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous P. 531 "He Who Loses His Life"

The experience of saying "Fuck it" and throwing in the towel is universal in The Rooms.  We drink responsibly and then we drink irresponsibly and then we are so far over any acceptable limit that we give in and give up and drink to our hearts' content.  This is not drinking for pleasure.  This is desperation drinking.  This is drinking for obliteration and unconsciousness.  This is drinking to fill a need, not a want.  It's no longer fun at this point but instead is a coping mechanism and a poor one at that because it makes things worse, not better.

"The Gospel of John in the Bible, speaking of the creation of the universe, says, 'In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.'  The word is the powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic.  But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you."

The Four Agreements  Michael Ruiz

The Toltecs say that we should "Be Impeccable With Your Word."  I assumed this could be chalked up to the idea that lying is not a great coping mechanism and lying all the time is even worse, that in the end it brings fire and brimstone and shame down on my soul.  Here, we have a Saint in the Christian faith suggesting that initially your word brings you close to God and then the word becomes God.  That's a pretty good promise right there.  That's a pretty good reason to be careful with my word

The Committee

 
Meditation: Deep, continued thought; solemn reflection on sacred matters as a devotional act.
 

The mind of an average alcoholic is home to about five hundred shrieking, screaming, incoherent alter egos. This is The Committee. They are dishing out all kinds of contradictory advice, most of it barely rational, and demanding immediate action. We are being warned of dire consequences and impending tragedies. These individuals are not stopping to ponder anything – they are frantically trying to prevent whatever horrible tragedy is lurking just around the corner. They are firmly in control of our actions.

If prayer can be defined as talking to God, then meditation is our attempt to listen to what He has to say. At first, it’s like trying to listen to the small voice of a soft-spoken child at a monster truck pull. The Committee has had our undivided attention for a long time and they are not going to cede this influence without a fight. They aren’t going to pipe down the first time we try to shut them up.

Meditation can be very difficult. To sit in a quiet place and listen for the small, still voice of God, to wait for inspiration or an intuitive thought, is a life time exercise for most of us. We are used to flying off the handle and pursuing whatever impulsive thoughts pop into our minds. God suggests things – he doesn’t scream instructions at us. Hisadvice is good but we have to pay attention if we want to hear it.

The Committee will never be completely muzzled.

God Is Everywhere. God Is Everything.

I admit to indulging my fascination with God and gods and spirituality and religion on a regular basis.  I am fascinated by how new things are always emerging from the muck and the shadows of my boggy brain.  Do a little reading, do a lot of thinking, maybe a conversation tossed in here and there, and a thought or awareness materializes out of the fog.  The general content has a freaky connectivity.  I see the general principles underlying mankind's search for an understanding of the Big Picture: why are we here?  what is the nature of existence?  what comes next?  how the hell did that guy that I don't like (fill in your particular politician here) get elected?

Sometimes I surmise that there's a big underground kitchen that prepares the food for a whole street full of restaurants.  The food seems too similar to come from different individual kitchens.  You are telling me that Wendy's people can't make McDonald's burgers? C'mon.  One.  Big.  Kitchen.  In a similar vein, I've come to believe that there's One.  Big.  God.  out there.  We're all praying to the same god.   One big consciousness.  One big life force filling everything up.  I don't know what it's doing and I don't know what the plan is but that's none of my business.  Everything I read or hear about gods and religions ends up emphasizing a bunch of common sense stuff.  It's too bad that humans often decide that their particular god is the right god and if you don't believe in our god then we're going to have to kill your ass.  Show me where that's written down in your original text.   

We're all connected and separate at the same time, flowing together and moving apart, the people and the plants and the animals and the spirits of everyone who has come before, all of us here now and all of us from the past, all together now and for all the time that is left us.

Hog Wild

Whenever I'm not good enough for myself it's usually because I don't fit with my own image of perfection and not because someone else is judging me as unsatisfactory, as falling short of an ideal.  It's as if I can't forgive myself for not being what I wish to be, or rather what I believe I should be.  I cannot forgive myself for not being perfect.  The problem as I see it comes when I don't accept myself.  I reject myself because I'm not what I pretend to be.  I want to be a certain way, but I'm not, and for leads to shame and guilt.  I punish myself endlessly for not being what I believe I should be.

The way I judge myself makes me the worst judge that ever existed.  No one in my life has ever heaped as much abuse on myself as I have.  If someone treated me the way I can occasionally treat myself I'd punch them in the nose and I've never punched anyone in the nose, ever.

I struggle with this constant balancing act between moving forward too aggressively and sitting still too passively.  Mostly, with me, the problem is the need for speed, the need to move and shift and change.  I don't like things too quickly and I want to change them too recklessly.  I'm not great at just sitting still.  Which feels like doing nothing.  Which is the definition of sitting still, goddammit.  I have engaged in a lifelong struggle with quiet and patience, with waiting for some things to come to me instead of my going out and tackling them (or hog-tying them - more on that in a minute).  If I don't nurture my quiet self then my reckless self runs hog wild.  (Ed. Note: Hog Wild is a great phrase.  It would also be a great name for a Big Hair Band.  I could also see this as a song on Motley Crue's third album.)  The frustration for me occurs when I'm not that thrilled with what's going on while simultaneously clueless about what I need to go hog wild on.  This leads to unrestrained, thoughtless, unproductive hog wildness.  

Any fool can see this doesn't benefit anyone.

Serenity?

Serenity:  The state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.

So here's what serenity looks like after 38 years of sobriety . . . 

I bought a bag of grapefruit from my local grocery store recently. A bag of rotten grapefruit, I'll point out - every single one of them full of an evil blackness when I broke the skin.  I'm pretty understanding with fresh fruit and vegetables.  Fruit's a gamble.  I acknowledge this.  If I get something crappy I figure it goes with the territory and I keep my mouth shut.  But a whole bag, I thought, qualified for a refund.  I even took a picture of some of the diseased grakpefruit to bolster my case if this was needed.

I forgot to bring along the receipt the first time I returned to the store.

The second time I had the receipt but I forgot to bring it to the attention of the service desk.

But the third time - the third time! - I had the receipt and I took it to the service desk where I was told I needed to pursue my complaint with the clerk in the checkout line.  I looked back at the long line and figured I'd take this up in the future.

I forgot to bring it up in the future.

But then - then! - I pulled the receipt out and showed it to the clerk, explaining the situation and asking for some kind of restitution.  I thought this was reasonable.

"You bought this at the start of the year?" she asked, peering at the receipt.

I shrugged noncommittally.  "Whatever date is on the receipt."  In no world did I imagine that the date I bought a bag of diseased fruit was the problem.  I anticipated the problem being the diseased bag of fruit itself.

"Yeah, the first of the year," she said, marking the receipt and clicking on the keypad and generally fucking around with the receipt and the keypad, to what purpose I did not know.  

I'm starting to get a little annoyed.  Not ruin my day annoyed but either give me a refund or tell me you're not going to give me a refund annoyed.

"Look," I said.  "If I waited too long so be it."  There were people in line and I was getting slightly more annoyed.  Not super annoyed, but more annoyed.

In The World According to Seaweed - a dark and illogical world, I grant you - the woman would have given me a refund - maybe suggesting to smooth things along that if something like this happened again I bring the matter to the store's attention in a more timely fashion - or tell me that this return had exceeded the stores Statute of Limitations.  I was fine with either eventuality.  This wasn't Fort Knox money - this was Overpriced Specialty Coffee money, which I dish out regularly without a whiff of irritation.

Still . . . serenity?

Jaysus

Your whole mind is a fog which the Toltecs call a mitote.  Your mind is a dream where a thousand people talk at the same time, and nobody understands each other.  In India this is called maya which means illusion.  Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans.  We have learned to live our lives trying to satisfy other people's demands.  We keep searching and searching, when everything is already within us.  There is no truth to find.

Mitote in the mind would translate beautifully as:

• Mental chaos

• Inner noise

• Thought clutter

• Emotional static

• Psychological commotion

In a poetic or metaphorical sense, mitote fits perfectly for a loud, restless, crowded inner world - thoughts talking over each other, emotions colliding, mental unrest.

“Traigo un mitote en la cabeza”  or “I’ve got chaos in my head.”

It has a deeper feel than just “anxiety” — more like busy mind energy + emotional turbulence + mental noise.  It’s a powerful word for that kind of internal storm.

Māyā is a foundational concept in Indian philosophy, and it’s deeper than the casual English use of “illusion.”  In Sanskrit, māyā literally means “that which measures, forms, or creates.” Philosophically, it refers to the power that makes the world appear the way it does, even when that appearance doesn’t reflect ultimate reality.

In Hindu philosophy:

• Māyā is the cosmic illusion that causes humans to perceive the world as separate, permanent, and independent.

• It doesn’t mean the world is fake—more like misperceived.

• Because of māyā, we see multiplicity instead of the underlying unity.

Classic metaphor: mistaking a rope for a snake in dim light.

In Buddhism:

• The term suggests impermanence and emptiness.

• Phenomena are condition-dependent and lack inherent essence.

Everyday / poetic usage in India:

• Can mean magic, wonder, enchantment, or the mysterious beauty of life.

• Often used romantically or artistically.

Important nuance

Māyā is not just “illusion” in the Western sense of something unreal or deceptive.
It’s better understood as:

• veil

• misreading

• appearance mistaken for essence

Why it matters

Understanding māyā is key to:

• spiritual liberation

• detachment from ego and material obsession

• seeing beyond surface reality

Allegory of the Cave (from The Republic):
Plato asks you to imagine people who’ve been chained in a cave since birth, facing a wall. Behind them is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners are objects. The prisoners only see the shadows of those objects on the wall.

To them, those shadows = reality.

If one prisoner is freed and turns around, the fire hurts his eyes. If he leaves the cave, the sunlight is blinding at first—but eventually he sees the real world. When he goes back to tell the others, they think he’s crazy and might even kill him for threatening their “truth.”

Bad Bazooka

I spoke recently with one of my oldest and dearest friends in the world.  He had some questions about how to best support his son who checked himself into emergency rehab or a temporary psych ward or some other end-of-the-road facility.  The kid - 35 years old, that's a kid now, for chrissake - and I share a lot of similarities in our behavior and drug/alcohol preferences so my friend asked if I'd be willing to talk to him.

Would I ever!  I light up like a Roman candle when I'm asked to pass along my own experience, strength, and hope.  This lines up with one of the foundational principles of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous: namely, that we have to give it away if we want to keep it.  When I talk to someone trying to get sober I can say "I know what you're going through" and mean it.  I still can't believe how tickled I am when someone asks for my help/advice about the recovery process.  At the end of my drinking no one was asking me advice about anything.  People wouldn't ask me for directions or which hot sauce I liked best.  I was not a font of wisdom about anything that wasn't addiction related; like where to buy excellent weed or which liquor store had good prices on cheap whiskey and bad quarts of beer.

I'm used to these conversations and I'm able to offer my help and provide some perspective on recovery as it happens in A.A.  I've been sending him some snippets of info as they pop into my mind.  I told him that he had broached many topics and issues that would take me a chunk of time to unravel and digest.  I'm toying with sending him a note along these lines.  The message is a lot more blunt and factual than I wanted to pass along during the initial conversation.  Mulling it over . . . 

"For many people who have a drinking and/or drug problem, recovery is a slow, ponderous process that takes some time and some patience.  It's like turning a battleship around.  It's like tipping over a Coke machine - it doesn't go over with the first push.  You gotta get that baby rocking back and forth and then it goes over.  I'm not suggesting that no one gets sober/clean on the first try but it's generally considered the exception rather than the rule.  That being said there are a million different ways for this to go and alcoholics/addicts are famously unpredictable.

All I'm saying is it's best to be flexible and non-judgemental.  Don't expect the best or fear the worst.

I've given my phone number to new people hundreds and hundreds of times over the years and I would estimate that I've received a call maybe 5% of the time?  If that?  And of those people who did call I would estimate that I took a second call maybe 5% of that time?  In this case - because you've known me for so long and because I've been sober for so long and because you're advocating for me as an incredibly hip and cool Old Guy  - these odds may be better.  Your boy may be more receptive to reaching out, to picking up that 1,000 lb phone.  (I'm going to leave out the fact that when I took his phone number I sent him a quick text introducing myself.  Nothing.  Radio silence.  This text went winging out past the moon and is on it's way to the nebula Bazooka.)  (Fair disclosure - I don't know what a nebula is, exactly, and I'm certain that there isn't one called Bazooka.)  (Quick addendum: but wouldn't "Bazooka" be a great name?  The term actually was coined by a comedian a hundred years ago who built - as a stage prop - a fictitious, weird-looking, non-functional musical instrument that he called a Bazooka and that was picked up by the military in WWII because the lethal bazooka kind of looks like the funny-fake musical instrument bazooka which would be an excellent name for a heavy metal band.  Bad Bazooka!)

But, man!, what an honor to be asked!  To be given the opportunity to pass along The Message.  His son is not much older than I was when I staggered into The Rooms.  Lots of damage was done but much more was presented.

P.S.: The Kid did respond and we've texted back and forth a bit.  It's a promising start.

Little Men in the Walls

Desperation:  The feeling of being in such a bad situation that you will take any risk to change it; loss of hope and surrender to despair which often leads one into rash or extreme behavior.

From The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous story called "Desperation Drinking" comes this description of where the brutal and inevitable decline of alcoholic drinking leads us: "This type of drinking is not pleasant.  It is no longer enjoyable.  You no longer get the kicks.  It is desperation drinking."

Here's one little aphorism about drug addiction: You take the first hit to get high but after that you're just trying to not get sick.  I tell people all the time that I wasn't looking to have fun at the end.  I was trying to mask my pain and - at the very end - I was trying to escape reality, to obliterate consciousness.  I wanted to pass out or go to bed.  I didn't want to be awake, to be conscious.  I wanted to go away.

This Big Book anecdote is kind of funny . . . in a terrifying way: "I was drinking to keep away the shakes, drinking to keep away those little men and those strange voices and the organ music that comes out of the walls."

While it wasn't a constant battle trying to chase the little men out of my rathole apartment I was starting to familiarize myself with the initial stages of such phenomena.  One example: the woman who lived below me in one city had a third shift job so she came home in the middle of the night.  Sometimes I'd wake up briefly as she settled into her place but one night she was really banging around down there.  It sounded like she was opening cabinet doors and then violently slamming them shut.  I put up with it for a while and then -  incensed - I stomped down the back stairs to ask her to quiet down . . . to find that she wasn't home yet.  THAT one got my attention.

This reminiscence from The Big Book is funny in a "Been there - done that" kind of way: "My drinking pattern isn't very different than the average you find in A.A.  After I came in I found I wasn't an exceptional drunk.  I used to think I was.  I also thought I was a brilliant drunk.  I have my brilliant moments yet, but whenever the boys catch me at it they tell me so very plainly."

While I've heard some blunt advice in The Rooms generally speaking my buddies simply let me talk out loud for a while without much blow-back or contradiction.  This lets me hear the sound of my own voice saying weird and illogical things when I have the time and an audience to closely listen to what I'm saying.  Most of us respond defensively when someone says: "You sound like an idiot."  It's generally better when we can say to ourselves: "Boy.  I sound like a real idiot here.  Maybe I better stop talking."

An Oddball Collection of Oddballs From One Who Ought to Know

There's this guy who lives across the street who's a bit of an oddball.  And I should stress that there's nothing wrong with being an oddball.  He may be a little autistic.  He rarely comes outside and when he wanders over to our porch we never know what kind of weirdness is going to come out of his mouth.  Not scary or threatening weirdness - just thinking and behavior that makes us shake our heads afterwards.  Sometimes I think something but I don't say what I'm thinking because I know it would elicit some head-shaking from whoever I was talking to. Sometimes I say it anyway just to elicit some head-shaking.  Usually, however and for instance, I don't bring up my suspicion that the rocks in my cactus garden are talking to the palm trees.  I certainly don't share the details of the conversations that I eavesdrop on.  I mean it is my cactus garden.  If the rocks and the plants don't want me to hear what they're talking about they should wait until I go to bed or turn out the lights.  I drive right by the garden when I leave the house.  It's not too hard to figure out a good time to chat privately. 

In the summer we have a little patio out back that is shielded from the sun.  In the winter the front porch is warm and sunny, the place to be.  We move back and forth for reasons of comfort, mostly.  The front porch, however, is exposed to the street and this makes us easily accessible to people passing by.  Sometimes I don't mind this.  Often I'd prefer my interactions to be along the line of "hi how ya doin'?" with the subtext being "I'm reading so I'd prefer that you just keep moving along."  It's nothing personal.  It's not that I don't want to talk to you.  It's that I don't want to talk to anyone.  I'm reading.  SuperK and our neighbor were chatting one day and he asked if the reason we hadn't been using the front porch for a while was because of him.  My wife gave him a hug and explained the logistics of our outside time, amazed at how easily we turn our attention on ourselves.  I used to think that there were a billion people in China thinking about me.  This made sense to me.  Who else would they be thinking about?

No one is thinking about me!  No one is doing anything to me!

Here's the flip side of the coin.  The people who live right across the street from us - interestingly enough, also oddballs but my kind of oddballs because they leave me alone - had some medical  stuff going on that resulted in a bunch of trips to a variety of hospitals and emergency rooms.  When they returned in the early evening after what I was sure were a couple of grueling days I strolled across the street and checked in with them.  This couple is very private, rarely leaving their house which I learned was sort of stuffed pretty full with stuff and junk when I tried to hand over a package that had been mistakenly delivered to our house.  Even as a obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive neat freak I could care less what their house looks like.  Anyway, the dude who was having the medical challenges came over and hugged SuperK one afternoon and told us how much they had appreciated our concern.  I see how little it takes to make a difference in someone's life.  I see if I get my head out of my ass - it doesn't even have to be all the way out of my ass, just halfway out is a big improvement - I can make a real difference.

Lots of Good Reading Material Out There

In the January 17 entry in A.A.'s Daily Reflections the writer says this about entering The Program: "Its not that I wanted help so much at the time; I simply did not want to hurt like that again.  My desire to avoid hitting bottom again was more powerful than my desire to drink."

I identify with this kind of thinking, believing that for much of my drunken history I wasn't having fun so much as desperately trying to avoid pain.  And, at the end, I was just trying to obliterate reality.  I knew, for instance, that if I didn't eat any dinner the alcohol would hit me earlier and harder and I could end the misery of the day and go to sleep.  It wasn't fun.  It was a hammer upside my head and then oblivion.  It wasn't so important to feel good - the idea was not to feel anything.

Here's some Toltec wisdom: "What is right and what is wrong - it was all within me already.  All that knowledge, all those rules and concepts about how to behave in the world.  I didn't choose my religion or my moral values - they were already there before I was born.  I never had to choose what to believe or what not to believe."

I'm grateful to my parents for teaching me to brush my teeth and go to school.  Did I need them to tell me not to beat puppies or say something that made another person cry?  I think that stuff is part of our makeup.  I've read that human beings are the only animals that will injure or kill another for reasons that don't pertain to reproduction or food.  So I guess our big brains aren't as impressive as we think they are.  We can design moon rockets but have trouble grasping the idea that we can use our fists just for the hell of it.

Here's another Toltec thought about what motivates our behavior: "We became afraid of being punished and also afraid of not receiving the reward.  With that fear of being punished and that fear of not getting the reward, we start pretending to be what we are not, just to please others, just to be good enough."

Man, it can be hard being myself.  Man, can I look back on my past life and see how much time I spent dissembling to be who I thought you wanted me to be.  What a lie I lived!

From The Big Book story called "Our Southern Friend comes this ending barrage of thoughts and emotions (with some editing for flow and continuity): "The same old problems and worries surround me.  Members of my family annoy me.  Nothing seems to be working out right.  I go to see a man I had been asked to visit and tell my story.  I feel much better!  The next day I am very unhappy so I talk to the stranger in the seat beside me.  The fear and the insane ideas are taken away.  I am learning that I cannot have my own way as I used to.  I should do some constructive acts of love without expecting any return.  But, I begin to play God.  I feel that I can fix everyone.  I do not fix anyone, but I am getting part of a tremendous education and I have made some new friends.  I have learned that honesty is truth, and that truth shall make us free!"

Hill of Beans

I have a friend in recovery who finished up a temporary consulting job and was trying to figure out her next move.  She wasn't sure if she would be leaving the area and heading back East or taking a job locally and moving to be closer to that job or staying put, continuing to take consulting gigs that require that she be out of town and away from her support network for chunks of time.  This put her at odds with her landlady who quite understandably wanted firm plans for her apartment one way or another.  My friend thought she was being rigid and unreasonable.  Maybe she was.  Probably not, but maybe.  The rigid landlady was The Problem.  I didn't know what the Solution was at the time but she chose the local job, without any input from me, thank God and for good reason.  The lesson is that whatever is getting under my skin and turning up my Outrage Machine is not going to amount to a hill of beans in the not too distant future.

Hill of Beans: Not worth much; of a trifling value.  

The Animate Machine

One of the staff - Pepe with his master's degree and working on his doctorate - on our recent Antarctica trip came up to SuperK and me at the airport and told us how much he enjoyed our company.  This guy gave a lecture that we found so interesting that we corralled him after his talk to discuss the subject in greater detail.  We did it because we were interested in the topic but we also did it because everyone likes to be recognized, to be seen, to feel like what they were trying to say was heard.  We made it a point to do this after every lecture we attended - whether we found the lecture interesting and informative or not - and we were surprised at how often the presenter was left alone at the podium at the end, shuffling papers, while the attendees just stood up and walked out, talking among themselves about this and that - themselves, probably.  Even if I didn't love the lecture I could find something to relate to or some fact that was new and surprising to me.  Some thing that I could talk to the lecturer about.  I felt like I was saying: "Good job.  I heard you."

Joyous:  Extremely happy; extreme, exuberant, deep happiness.    

Another guy - Roddy with his two master's degrees and twenty years experience working as an anthropologist in the ghettos of South Africa - so intrigued SuperK and me that we talked to him on a number of occasions.  This is the animist guy, the guy who said: "Yes!  We need more animists!" when I told him I was thinking of converting to animism even though I don't really know what that means.  I'd be a Christian Animist.  I guess animism is an ancient belief system that postulates that  the rocks in my cactus garden talk to the plants while my dead ancestors whirl around miasmatically in the moonlight.  What's not to like?  I'm a big fan of rocks and cacti and departed ancestors and I really love a good beam of moonlight.  When we parted for the last time he said that he really appreciated our joyousness.    

And . . . the head of security for the ship - the Brit David - approached us as we were waiting to de-boat.  His staff was responsible for making sure only passengers got back on the ship when we were in port and also - more importantly, I think - making sure that everyone who got off the boat got back on the boat.  It wouldn't be great marketing to leave a guest on an ice floe somewhere and sail blithely off.  I always tried to say something cheerful or silly when I was getting off the ship and when I was returning, calling the staff by name, bitching about freezing my skinny ass off, taking shit with self-deprecation when I lost my ID three times - three times! Not once or even twice but three times! - and even encouraging the staff to pile on.  Just to be joyous.  I think most people looked at the security staff as animate machines.  I think most people would have been happy scanning their IDs into a machine.  David thanked us for this.  I hope it made a difference to the security staff to have someone treat them like real people; real people who are away from their families and their homes for four months at a crack.  That can't be easy.  Frankly, these people were much more interesting to me than the self-satisfied guests wallowing in their vaguely discontented ennui.

The Animate Machine would be an excellent name for a heavy metal band.

Problem V Solution

Problem:  A matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.

Solution: A means of solving a problem or dealing with a difficult situation.

I often think about my kinda sponsee who got a DUI but cannot seem to get past his resentment that The Man is screwing him over somehow.  This may be true - what do I know?  Now, usually when I ask "what do I know?" I'm asking a rhetorical question while implying that I know a great deal which is usually not the case.  This is why I make so much stuff up.  In this instance, however, I've got some knowledge and I've got some experience and these two things combined lead to a schtickle of wisdom, and the wisdom in this case and to my way of thinking is that it takes a lot more energy to complain than it does to accept.  Life is often capricious and seemingly unfair so my tendency is to seize these contradictions as an excuse to complain that I'm being persecuted.  When things are going my way I spend very little time pondering how lucky I am that things are going my way but when things aren't going my way then I litigate and rehash the unfairness over and over again, in my own head and to anyone who I can trap into listening.  So I brought this "wisdom" to his attention after listening to his grievances over and over, in as kind a way as I could while trying to bring a little firmness to the process, and he took my thoughts well but I bet that the next time I speak with him that he's going to be stuck in the same trash-filled rut.  It takes time to internalize new behavior and he's not really going at his recovery hammer and tongs at this point, preferring to dabble when it's convenient.

Tong:  A type of tool used to lift and grip objects instead of holding them directly with hands.

Hammer and Tong: With great vigor and determination, energetically and enthusiastically.

So what's my game plan today?  Finding problems?  Or finding solutions?

It's All the Same, Man

 She respected his rich and hidden interior life, which she thoroughly expected to yield a puzzling exterior; she knew he was an interior man.  He had always been a daydreamer; now that he didn’t write, he seemed to daydream a little more.  Once, he told her that he wondered if he was an avatar. In Hindu mythology, an avatar is a deity, descended to earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape.  Did he really believe he was the incarnation of a god? “Which god?” she asked him. “I don’t know,” he humbly told her.

That was the Parsis.  Here are the Toltecs: "Everything in existence is a manifestation of the one living being we call God.  Everything is God.  He saw himself in everything - in every human, in every animal, in every tree, in the water, in the rain, in the clouds, in the earth.  He said: 'It is true.  I am God.  But you are also God.  We are the same, you and I.  We are images of light.  We are God.'  Then he knew that he would forget all that he had learned."

As you know I've decided to become a Christian animist.  It's a new religion.  I'm the only member so far.  "Many animistic traditions include belief in a supreme 'High God,' but the focus of religious life is usually on the numerous lesser gods, nature spirits, and ancestors who directly influence daily life, rather than this distant creator.  Animism sees the world as filled with spiritual essences in everything (plants, rocks, animals, etc.), so 'gods' are often seen as powerful spirits, not necessarily the singular, all-powerful God of monotheism."

A 16th century mosque in the Indian city of Ayodhya was destroyed by a violent group of Hindu nationalists in 1992.  The Hindus believed that the mosque was built on land that had once held a Hindu temple.  In Jerusalem, the Christians, Jews, and Muslims all believe that in the past this tiny, teeny piece of land was sacred ground and should be claimed only by their monotheistic religion - which they're certain is correct and if you don't agree then you're going to burn on a Lake of Fire for all eternity - who comes up with this shit, this violent imagery, anyway? -  and that all other religions were to be excluded.  "Get the fuck off my lawn, infidels!" you can imagine them shrieking at the contending belief systems.  

I've read the Bible.  I can't find a great emphasis on burning in hell for all eternity.  I can't speak for the other monotheists.  Maybe Lakes of Fire are popular.  Maybe "Are YOU going to burn for all eternity on a Lake of Fire?" is a popular Sunday School lesson for impressionable young children.  "Suffer the little children to come to me so I can scare the shit out of them about burning on Lakes of Fire."  This is like eating potato chips.  I can't stop eating them.  There's so much great stuff I can hallucinate up on the topic of Lakes of Fire.

Let today's lesson be this: Be careful about how much LSD you eat when your brain is still developing.  Turns out there are consequences to my behavior.  Mom was right.  So were the cops.  

One Big, Vague God For All of Us

I have read a bunch about the different religions and moral philosophies that have served as spiritual guideposts for people over the millennia.  My Great Discovery! has been that at their core they all basically say the same thing.  I haven't found any written instructions on how to be a selfish dick or to use violence to get what I want.  No commandments along those lines that I've been able to uncover.  "If your neighbor has some shit that you want thou shalt go steal that shit and make it your own."  Nowhere to be found.  "Honor thy father and thy mother unless thou does not want to."  Etc. Etc. Etc.    

My conclusion is that there is one Big God floating around up there or over this way or inside us or something.  Maybe God is like a 60s tribute band: he plays a little of that and a little of this, nothing too outrageous, everything kind of pleasantly pleasing, nobody can remember exactly what was played but everyone leaves feeling pretty good.   A good riff is a good riff.  It's comforting to me to think that those of us who are seeking a spiritual presence all end up in the same place, praying to the same presence or force or being.  It's as if God changes outfits to please the intended audience but it's still God underneath the clothing.  Your God has an elephant head and six arms and mine wears robes and has a long, white beard and that guy is a fat dude sitting in the Lotus position with a goofy smile on his face.   It's all God!  It's all the same thing!  Can you imagine Jesus and Buddha and Ganesh and Mohammed getting into a violent argument about some picayune procedural minutia?  "Your God has the head of an elephant!?  Fucking ridiculous!  Believe in my God - he can walk on water and raise people from the dead or he lives in rocks or he doesn't really have any form at all.  THAT makes sense!" 

Smash the Delusion

Smash:  Violently break something into pieces.

Delusion: A false belief or judgement about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, as a symptom of serious mental illness.

From The Big Book: "We learned that we had to concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics.  This is the first step in recovery.  The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed."

Okay, then.

Here's food for thought.  If a tsunami kills thousands of people in India it's hard to assess blame for the disaster.  We're sad for the loss of life but no one did anything to anyone else.  There's no one to go after and punish.  But if a terrorist explodes a bomb in a public place and kills hundreds of people it's easy to assess blame and it's easier yet to gin up enough outrage to go after the perpetrators to exact revenge.  The interesting thing is that there was a large loss of life in both cases.  So what's the difference?  One was not preventable - or not as easily preventable, at least - and the other was?  It makes me ponder the motivation behind my behavior in the world today.  Am I nice or a shithead contingent on some internal sense of how things should work, of what is right or wrong, or am I looking to seek retribution, to lash out and take my pound of flesh from someone I hold responsible, correctly or incorrectly?  I've read that children generate ethics gradually: first, they behave well so they won't get punished; then they behave well even if they realize they won't get caught and punished, that they can probably "get away with it"; and finally they behave well because they've internalized good behavior, they understand intrinsically what good and bad behavior is.  They no longer need to be told what bad behavior is - they feel it in their bones.

"Smash the Delusion" would be an excellent stoner Rock tune.

Obsession for Destruction

I'm nearing the end of my Toltec book.  I'm going to miss it.  I like the message.  I like that the message hews so closely to the message of A.A. while coming at it from a slightly different angle.  As I say often: spirituality is spirituality.

A quick summation: "Through the power of forgiveness, you are able to move past the harm caused by others and see that they were doing the best they could at the time." (Ed. Note: I'd add 'with the tools they had.')  

"In the end, you know that you are already perfect and complete, more than enough, and you will always receive exactly what you need in every moment." (Ed. Note: Right here - Right now or 'One day at a time.')  

"You no longer try to control those around you with anger, guilt, or sadness in order to force them to believe or act the way you think they should for no one is more important than anyone else."  (Ed. Note: Live and Let Live.)

The phrase "power of awareness" comes up often.  Aware that you're doing the best you can, that you know who you are, that you don't need to distort the world around you to fit your warped perception of how things 'should be,' that you can act and speak with complete confidence and without apology, that you can face life with positivity and leave the negativity behind.

How exhausting it is to be negative!       

Talk about The Promises!

I'll conclude with this marvelous, marvelous quote from P. 21 in the Twelve and Twelve: "It is truly awful to admit that, glass in hand, we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of Providence can remove it from us."

"Obsession for Destruction" would be an excellent title for a heavy metal tune.

Relevance!

More bemused reflections on my state of being and place in the world.  When I was younger I didn't think much about how young I was.  I seemed to be in the world on many different levels.  I had many different hats to wear.  Today I don't have as many hats and this makes me less and less relevant in The Big Picture.  I grew up with a mother who mentally was always twenty years older than her actual chronological age so I'm careful today to opine on this subject, this phase, with what I hope is a good perspective.  I internalized her obsession with aging in an unhealthy fashion.  I no longer do this.  When I talk about getting older I do it as a very active dude who goes at life with a lot of vigor.  Nonetheless, I don't want to be stupid about it.  I am hiking still but for two or three hours instead of four or five.  Sometimes I still hike for four or five hours but I'm savvy enough to realize that this would be problematic at some point.

I walk with an A.A. member who is getting close to fifty but doesn't really grasp what this entails.  I think he looks at me like his father or mentor but considers himself still in the game with young women twenty years younger than he is.  A twenty year ago difference is a twenty year age difference.  The physical decline becomes more pronounced the older we get - no one was checking my drivers license when I was buying beer in my late twenties - but we have a tendency to hang on to this image as a person who is younger than we really are.  This guy runs for exercise.  Good for him.  Some of us can tolerate more strenuous forms of activity for longer periods of time.  But he couldn't run for a number of months because of some knee pain.  When you're in your twenties pain or discomfort is something we can power through.  No pain, no gain, right?  Pain is weakness leaving your body, right?  Except when pain is telling you that you're damaging something.  My recollection is that I could do almost anything I wanted physically until I was in my forties when I began to hve the sneaking suspicion that I was bumping up against some physical limits.  This dude is going to be replacing his knees before he hits his sixties.  Or his hips.  But you can't tell him something like this even though I'm speaking from a place of experience.  

Relevance:  The degree to which something is related or useful to what is happening or being talked about; important to the matter at hand.

Tirelessly Complaining

As a general rule I don't present myself as a potential sponsor very often as I think this is a task/chore for newer people who are closer to the horrors of active alcoholism than I am.  And I travel a lot which is disruptive to continuity in the recovery process.  Aaaaaaaaand I don't really want to do it anymore.  New people are annoying and I'm intolerant and impatient, a bad combination.  So you can see it takes me a while slinging bullshit before I get to the truth of the matter.

Back to this new guy who poked and prodded me about my willingness to be a sponsor until I agreed to step in.  This guy got burned with a DUI during his latest experiment with drinking and he has been struggling with some significant changes in his field of employment which is stressing him financially.  As if all this is not enough he has been cycling back and forth to the Midwest to deal with his aging parents: his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and is undergoing treatment for that while his ex-military father is descending into dementia.  He has a lot on his plate.  He is also not working much of a recovery program so when we do talk (by that I mean he talks) I'm assaulted by a lengthy litany of self-pity and grievance.

While this is understandable and common and I realize I'm fulfilling a need of his by simply listening, I'm beginning to tire of the complaining.  I get it - life can be tough.  I also get this - most of my problems are of my own making or they are problems that everyone is going to face from time to time.  Life is fair that way.  We're all going to get sick and die.  Complaining about it isn't going to change anything.

Here's what I want to say to him: "I'm sorry that you are going through these difficulties.  One of the things that has helped me over the years is trying to differentiate between the problem and the solution.  I tend to focus on the problem and this is not helpful in the long run.  I also tend to discount my part in taking the problem and making it bigger and badder than it needs to be.  I also tend to ignore my part in the problem in the first place.

First of all: your DUI.  I do not doubt that there is some truth in your belief that there is a financial interest for The Authorities in imposing penalties.  This is America, after all.  Money is King.  Money Rules.  I also understand that when I was getting behind the wheel of a car when I was drunk I'm lucky I didn't wreck my car or wreck my car and injure myself or wreck my car and injure or kill someone else.  The rules and penalties are laid out.  When I got caught doing something wrong or illegal it was hardly fair for me to complain about the punishment no matter how unfair or excessive I thought the punishment was.  So today when I have a problem I try to get past the problem and get to the solution, to look on the bright side.  You could be sitting in jail right now, not earning money or helping care for your parents.  You're actually pretty lucky that everything has turned out the way it turned out.

Second of all and lastly - be grateful there's no thirdly of all for how tiring would that be? - I don't get the sense that you are part of any recovery community.  I don't care if it's not Alcoholics Anonymous.  That doesn't work for everyone.  I do suspect that without the support and care of other people - church, group therapy, whatever you choose - that your recovery is going to be a lot more of a slog than it needs to be.  There are few things worse than me sitting alone and relitigating my problems in my own mind.  That's a scary, dysfunctional, diseased place a lot of the time.

I'm definitely going to run this by someone before I send it to him.

Verbal Body Blows

Normally the Twelfth Month includes a lot of reminders about how important our service work is to our own sobriety and the First Month emphasizes powerlessness but I seem to be stuck on the service end of things even though we're in the New Year . .  .    

There have been a couple of instances lately where different men have expressed a lot of gratitude for my friendship.  I appreciate this greatly but I do get the sense that they are overestimating how I feel about the relationships.  I like both of them fine but they are not men that I find particularly interesting or that I have a desire to get to know better.  This is not a criticism of who they are but more a statement of who I am.  I really love the baseball/football game analogy.  Some people think football is great but if you don't like football don't go to football games and complain that it's not a baseball game.  It's not a baseball game!  These two guys are football fans and I'm a baseball guy.  We're never going to connect in a way that interests me.

Here's the point: I'm trying to think less about myself and more about others and even though I've been doing this a long, long time I still spend a lot of time thinking about myself and not enough time thinking about others.  When I see these guys I put on my "I give a shit" face and hitch up my britches and listen to the complaining and the tirades.  Neither of them seems to be very committed to any meaningful change and I'm not a guy to give commands or instructions or tasks so I see that this is one of those cases where what they need and want is what I'm giving them.  Not what I want to give them but what they want to receive, and this seems to be helping them.  I don't know how many more times or how many different ways I can make the fairly tiresome point that Being of Service means I'm trying to help someone else in the way they need/want to be helped.

A new guy delivered a delicious verbal body blow to me outside the meeting a few days ago.  I thought it was funny and - as I have pointed out - if a prodigious shit-giver like me can't take it I should go dig a hole and crawl down into it.  During the meeting I went to replenish my coffee and he followed me into the kitchen to make sure that I hadn't taken offense.  This made me happy.  I think he and I have relationships in recovery where we can talk about things like this.  I was glad he felt comfortable clearing the air immediately instead of wondering if he had done something to piss me off.  I assured him that it is almost impossible to offend someone who doesn't really care what anyone thinks about him, and to assure him that he had never done anything but put a smile on my face.

Is Crapulous A Word?

From the Toltecs . . . "You soon realize that in reality you have all your own answers, and any role models or teachers you engage with are only there to point you on the way back home to yourself."

This fits in well with my theory that a good life well-lived is a better example than a lot of talk.  I hope people are looking at my behavior rather than listening to my words.  As you will soon see my words can be crapulous.

From the Big Book comes one of my favorite passages . . .  "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."

Here's another one .  . .  "we had but two alternatives: one was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the unconsciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other was to accept spiritual help."

One more and then I'll stop - I promise . . . "These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all and once having lost their self-confidence their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. "

As a committed liar I wonder why anyone would believe any promises that I make so maybe this is the last one . . .  : "Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang.

On a side note . . . Bill likes the words "clang" and "clung."  Another one of his phrases that I love is "clung to the claim."  Sounds like a Black Sabbath song.

I like these passages from The Big Book.  I like the forceful words: Gates of Hell, astonishingly, bitter end, intolerable situation, wish for the end.  The founders were not mincing words.  They were not easing into anything.  They could have renamed The Big Book "You Are Going to DIE!" and the warning still would not have swayed some of us.  I felt for the longest time like I was underwater, trying to figure which way was up as I slowly ran out of oxygen

Green Hair and Eggs

I have been marveling at this idea that I spent a large portion of my life allowing other people to define who I was.  And, to be honest with you, reveling in the knowledge that I don't do that anymore.  From People Pleaser to Authentic Seaweed.  The hilariously irritating fact is that my relationships with people have never been better - people want authenticity.  There's nothing more irritating than talking to someone who is clearly putting up a front so that you will like them.  People sense bullshit.  I want you to relate to me just the same way you'd relate to the staff at a coffee shop.  

The other hilariously irritating fact is that not only did I let your approval of who I am define how I acted around you but that I'd go totally in the opposite direction and allow your disapproval of who I am do the same thing.  If I want to die my hair green but don't do it because I think you'd disapprove this is an example of me being disingenuous.  But if I die my hair green just because I think it would annoy you that's just a different way of being inauthentic.  In both cases I'm allowing you to define who I am.  Now, since I'm no longer a total idiot I understand that sometimes I have to conform to standards I may not agree with.  If I had dyed my hair green when I was working . . . well  . . . this wouldn't have helped me advance in my career.  Manufacturing engineers aren't going to buy anything from a middle-aged dude with green hair.

Help! I Need Somebody

Help is what someone needs, not what I want to give.           

There's a young guy who comes to our meeting a couple of times a week.  He suffers from some pretty debilitating mental illnesses.  Not scary mental illness but the kind that makes it difficult for him to navigate the world.  He has crises from time to time which require brief hospitalizations and a change in his medication schedule.  I sense he's quite bright - he may be one of those people who intuitively handles electronics - but he comes across as somewhat odd and tentative and a little hard to talk to.  He's a wonderful guy who's never going to be able to handle life in the way that you and I would consider conventional.  I try to really make him feel welcome and noticed.  Big hugs and questions about his life, that sort of thing.  He came up to me recently and asked if I wanted to "hang out."  

Sigh.  I do not want to hang out.  It's not thrilling or interesting to talk to.  Again, he's not completely compromised  but he's not running on all cylinders, either.  I'm happy to help out anyway I can . . . I want to help out anyone I can . . . I want to help out in a manner and fashion to my liking and this is not hanging out with this guy.  This sounds pretty selfish - which means it is pretty selfish - but it's not scary selfish, anyway.  I do have my own interests and activities that occupy my time and the meetings are for my benefit, too.  So . . . I relent.  I told him the two days next week that I'm certain to be at the meeting and invited him to join me for coffee.  He pointed out he doesn't attend on those days and asked if I would come on a couple of days that I don't attend but that he does.

Sigh.  Whadda ya goin' to do?

More will be revealed.  Not today, mind you, but they will be revealed.

Needs and Wants

Any action I take that is motivated by fear cannot also be motivated by unconditional love, and this ultimately leads to suffering in one form or another.  When I stop trying to force or control the people and situations that are happening around me and instead surrender to whatever life brings then I can find some contentment.  This doesn't mean I don't try to change things when it's within my power to do so but I hope I'm becoming adept at identifying the situations that are beyond my control, and in those instances trust and surrender to whatever the moment brings because I know I'll get exactly what I need.

I did not say there would always be enough of whatever I want in the moment, but rather what I need.  That is a big difference.  Sometimes there needs to be a certain amount of distance between me and the event before I can see this truth.  When I don't get what I want, I usually find that I get exactly what I need instead.  And I know that I am more than enough despite all of the urging of society to push harder and further.  Much of the suffering I endure is self-inflicted and it usually circles back to the idea that I'm not enough.

Pondering Seaweed

With some minor smugness I will say that my first barrage of dubious wisdom aimed at a complaining alcoholic landed cleanly.  It's luck, probably, more than anything.  I hope that my detachment and tact played a part in this soft landing but alcoholics are famously touchy and prone to view almost anything in the most negative light.  I am/was encouraged to go to work on Complaining Alcoholic Number Two when he sent me this brief text yesterday after our phone call: "I'm glad you're my friend."  This is a guy I would say I'm friendly with rather than that we're friends.  Not close friends.  Jeez, I should look up the definition of a friend, I guess.  Let's say I don't look forward eagerly to running into him.  He does far too much complaining for me to much enjoy his company.  That being said he's a nice man who is feeling sorry for himself and spending little time looking at his part in things.  Fair enough.  It's a lot easier and a lot more fun to blame people, places, and things for my difficulties than to see my part in it.

Because I like walking in minefields and on thin ice here goes anyway: "I have been pondering our conversation yesterday (if him talking while I listen can be called a conversation) and applying it to my circumstances to see I could add some perspective.  Everyone has to find their own way to work a recovery program and my way is my way and that's all it is.  I will say that one thing that may be of help to you - it has been a tremendous help to me - is to be an active member of a recovery community.  For me that's A.A.  For some people it's church or counseling.  If I didn't have the opportunity and responsibility to find my own way I would never have found the way that works for me . . . but regular contact with others who are in similar circumstances has helped a lot.  I do hear in your voice a lot of isolation.  When I'm talking to other people I sometimes hear thoughts and ideas that surprise me and - even more important - I surprise myself by what comes out of my own mouth.  Sometimes I need to talk around a subject before I get to the answer, and that requires that someone is listening while I talk.  Look, I get it - if my choice was to spend the rest of my life in close proximity to fifty other people or live by myself on a remote desert island I could make that decision almost immediately.  But that phrase "My best thinking got me to where I was when I was drinking" rings true for me."

I may send this and I may not.  Complaining Alcoholic Number One has been around The Program for a lot longer and is a much closer friend.  

Pondering . . . Pondering .  .  .  Pondering . .  .