Quiet! I'm Thinking.

Think: To keep continually in the mind; be obsessed with.

I have been thinking a lot lately about thinking. I'm a great thinker. It's a lot easier thinking about doing something than actually doing something, especially if the required action is at all unpleasant or difficult. So I sit and think. I weigh options. I mull over possibilities. I have long arguments with bitter enemies, confounding them with my brilliant logic. I convince everyone that my point of view is correct. Everyone comes to accept my way of thinking.

I have a wonderful ability of convincing myself that whatever I want to believe is, in fact, true. I am not usually deterred by the facts. Facts are play-doh to someone with my intellect. I can mold the facts to my liking. I can make a square peg fit in a round hole. I have a lot of powerful hammers. I am skilled at pounding. You better believe that those fucking square pegs go where I want them to go.

On the surface I appear to be a run of the mill horse-faced guy with a pleasant, somewhat vacant look on my face. This unremarkable exterior masks a much more sinister interior. The scene inside is nightmarish. It's Charlie and The Chocolate factory on steroids, right after the oompah-loompahs have taken LSD and gotten off of their anti-psychotic medication. It is not for the faint of heart.

What Do You Have in Your Box of Goodies?

Satisfactory: Satisfying; fulfilling all needs, expectations, wishes, desires, requirements, etc.

The big trick is figuring out how to be happy with what you have. It isn't as easy as it sounds. Actually, it doesn't even sound that easy. It sounds like a parlor trick performed by a desperately clever magician. It sounds like one of those impenetrable mental exercises. What would happen if an unstoppable force ran into an immovable object? How loud is too loud when one is listening to Black Sabbath?

I'm happy with what you have. Your stuff looks great. I'm not much interested in what I have. I'm very, very interested in what I don't have. I'm sure that I would be much happier if I had something else. How did I end up with all this crappy stuff, anyhow? This lousy job, these unsatisfying relationships, this dysfunctional family?

I get something, and I want something else. I'm bored immediately. I can't believe how much money I just spent for this thing I don't even like. I can't believe I quit my last job to take this awful job that I have now.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Selfish is the Way To Go

Selfish: Having such regard for one's won interests and advantage that the happiness and welfare of others become of less concern than is considered right or just; too much concerned with one's own welfare.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to be self-centered. Not as much time as I spend acting in a totally self-absorbed fashion, but still it adds up to a pretty significant block of time. I like to think about myself. It's my favorite topic. I am astounded to find out that other people don't spend all of their free time thinking about me. It could be helpful to me if they did. Maybe they could come up with creative solutions to the problems that I cause myself with my bad decisions and poor behavior.

The path to success for me has been to pretend like I care what is going on in someone else's life, even though I don't. I put a lot of stock in acting. I try to avoid the thinking thing. My thinker is on the fritz. The wiring up there has not been installed by a licensed electrician. I can't find the source of that loud buzzing, crackling noise that I hear from time to time. I can only assume it is not going to be good news. I pretend it doesn't exist. When my car makes an unusual sound, I turn up the radio.

When I behave well, I find that my thinking changes. I start to care about all of those people that I don't care about

Anger Infuriates Me

Anger: A feeling that may result from injury, mistreatment, opposition, etc.; it usually shows itself in a desire to hit out at something or someone else; wrath; indignation; rage; ire.

I'm not sure that I was aware that there was any other kind of feeling except for rage, wrath, and ire before I got into recovery. I had a passing acquaintance with depression but even in my parboiled state I knew that was the result of beating myself with my own Club of Anger. I have always subscribed to the theory that the best defense is a good offense, so when I don't feel good I take it out on someone else. It's your fault. It is a lot easier to scream furiously at one of my many clueless victims than to accept that my frustration with my own shortcomings is the real source of my problems.

I don't believe it's healthy for me to pretend that anger doesn't exist. It's a human emotion that we all have. I am done, however, with stuffing my rage deep down inside where the sun doesn't shine. Serenity now -- insanity later.

My anger is like nuclear fission. It can provide power for millions of people or it can wipe Turkestan off of the map. It's going to keep fissioning away. The trick is to quit pushing the Launch button.

Miracle or Oracle?

Miracle: An action or event that apparently contradicts known scientific laws and is hence thought to be due to supernatural causes, especially to an act of God.

I don't know. I think this is an overused word in The Fellowship. I don't think my recovery is a miracle, to be honest with you. I think that the fact that I do any work to try to stay sober is the miracle. I think the miracle occurred when I decided to do something about my drinking and starting getting in my car and driving to meetings. Picking up the phone to call another guy in recovery is an action contradicting known scientific laws.

This is not meant to imply that I don't give God a lot of credit for pointing me in the right direction. This Program is indeed miraculous. The fact that I am staying sober one day at a time is not. It's the result of a lot of diligent hard work done on a daily basis, rain or shine, whether I want to do the work or not. God showed me the way and then told me to get moving. To the best of my knowledge God has never driven me to a meeting or set my alarm clock for half an hour before I want to get up so that I can have a quiet time.

Ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration.

Sales 101

How important am I, really? To be honest about it, I'm very important. Remarkably important. I am certainly more important that everyone gives me credit for. I labor along, achieving great things, spreading my particular brand of joy and warmth and amazingness wherever I go, only to find that these efforts are consistently overlooked. They are willfully ignored by some of the truly egotistical and self-centered people out there. I should get an award every day -- a big reward -- for everything that I do.

Important: Having, or acting as if having, power, authority, influence, high position, etc.

For most of my tortured, spotty work life I have earned my living as a salesman. For many years I adorned my business cards with flowery euphemisms. I was an Account Manager or a Territory Manager, despite the fact that I couldn't manage my own life. I was a Sales Engineer, even though I have no educational or work experience in engineering and couldn't engineer my way out of a wet paper bag. I'm sure I fooled everyone. Some dude shows up at the front door with sales brochures, dressed like a salesman, and launches into a sales pitch -- who would think this dude is a salesman?

Life isn't that complicated. Most of us live quiet lives out of the spotlight. We should try to accept this. We should fill our time with small kindnesses and tender mercies. We are lucky to be where we are. We are lucky that we haven't gotten what we really deserve.

Actually, I like being a salesman. It allows me to goof off pretty much of the time.

I Should Do What Now?

Attract: To get the admiration, attention, etc. of; allure.

I love the concept of "attraction, not promotion." It is one of the tenets of The Program that I found irresistible almost immediately. No one tried to get me to stop to drinking. No one wagged their finger in my face. I wasn't presented with any stunningly obvious facts about the problems that alcohol was causing in my life. It doesn't do any good to tell someone sitting in jail for assault and battery on a police officer that they have to stop drinking, or else. I knew I was a drunk. I didn't need any confirmation of that clear truth.

Our book tells us that alcoholics are incredibly immature. That this offends us simply confirms the truth of the statement. If you tell me to do something -"Horseface, don't stick your screwdriver in that 440 Volt electric outlet" - my tendency is to do it. The best rationale for my motive is "spite." I can't come up with anything more logical than that. I do, however, watch people closely. If I see someone behave in a way that I like, I mimic them. What can I say? I have the emotional development of an eight year old.

Don't tell me what to do.