Is Yours an Innie or an Outie?

Needs: Something useful, required, or desired.

Yesterday I decided to explore my Inner Child, and that was a big mistake. My Inner Child is a pain in the ass. Maybe I should work on my Outer Child first, also a pain in the ass, and someone who causes a lot more problems in my life than the inner one. My Inner Child is just fine; maybe he should go play with all of the other Inner Children and leave me alone. If I could figure out how to open the gate and let him scamper free I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I'm not suggesting that I can totally ignore my psychological make-up. I'm suggesting that I shouldn't get too bogged down in it. Maybe some basic understanding of how I got to where I am today, and then get on with working The Steps. I'm not too big on getting My Needs Met, as in "I'm just not getting my needs met at that meeting." Well, tough shit. My needs are clean water and food in my belly, and a warm, dry place to sleep at night. Everything else is A Want.

Maybe I can trick my Inner Child so go away. Leave him some Maternal Love or Positive Feedback peanuts outside. He likes those. He'll follow those for thousands of miles.

Oops! Thanks! Gimme! Wow!

Praying Mantis: Any of a number of related long, slender insects with grasping, spiny forelegs often held together as if in prayer.

I read an essay on praying written by a skeptical atheist. This guy visited a number of different religious organizations, all of the main stream churches, before ending up at a country pentecostal type church. It was interesting to see how similar these groups were in their advice about effective praying. All of them stressed that praying was hard work that took a lot of practice. Work? Work? I hate work. I hate expending effort that doesn't provide quick, immediate results.

One leader said that prayers could be broken down into four groups: Oops! Wow! Thanks! and Gimme! I recalled my entry into A.A. and my initial struggles with praying, trying to throw off all of the old prejudices and rote memory exercises that meant nothing to me. My mentors suggested starting the day with Please! and ending it with Thanks! I couldn't argue semantics with that kind of advice.

Anyway, I thought the reporter would really tee off on the simple old Pentecostals. They are a pretty easy target for the cynical among us with all of their swaying and exaggerated facial expressions and brandishing of well worn Bibles. He spent some time talking to the kids at the church. He thought that they had a very simple and personal relationship with god. It ended up being his favorite church.

I have been giving short shrift to my praying lately. Praying is not nearly as sophisticated as meditating in the hip, slick, and cool world that I inhabit. But it was kind of cool listening to the kids talk about how they prayed: if they wanted something they asked for it; they frequently prayed for other people; they didn't seem to get too upset when things didn't go as expected.

My problem is that I pray AT things. God, gimme a Ferrari. God, gimme that guy's Ferrari because he doesn't deserve it. God, if you aren't going to give me that guy's Ferrari maybe he could have a minor accident -- nobody should get hurt, of course . . . too badly -- where there is extensive body damage. I get into trouble when I pray for specific results. And I think it's good technique to add that "if it's your will" disclaimer onto the end of the prayer, even though I don't mean it, obviously.

God, make my half-water Americano with unrefined sugar hot and delicious this morning.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

Ergh.

I have noticed since I quit drinking how the active alcoholics in most families seem to drive the agenda. I don't know why it took me so long to pick up on this. When I was drinking I would have been happy to have dinner with Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan and Vlad the Impaler as long as the alcohol was flowing. I didn't go anywhere if I couldn't drink as much as I wanted to and if I did, I made your life miserable. It had nothing to do with the people; it had to do with the drinking. This is why our acquaintances get more and more distasteful the longer we drink. Decent, normal people don't enjoy being around us after a while.

When the drunk hosts a family event, which they like to do because it puts a legitimate face on drinking and drunkenness, the alcohol is center stage. The turkey and the Christmas tree and the American flag play second fiddle to the alcohol. I remember showing up at a Memorial Day barbecue a few years back at an alcoholic relative's house. This dude had wine and a bar stocked with all kinds of hard liquor. He had a Margarita station and coolers full of beer and ales. The appetizers consisted of a prepackaged, unappealing cheese ball, and saltines. I rooted around in the cooler for something to drink, finding only one kind of soda, containing both sugar and caffeine, which I try to avoid, being a total hyperactive. That stuff makes me thirstier.

I drank tap water with an ice cube I fished out of the bottom of the cooler.

Eventually we got around to eating. Drinkers like to postpone the eating as long as possible. Food harshes the buzz. At that point I was damn hungry and resentful at having to sit around watching people drink. There were no distractions: music or TV or games or anything like that. Why bother? The booze was flowing. The activity was sitting around, talking and drinking. It wasn't very much fun. And this wasn't bad drinking; there weren't any fights or people falling into the coy pond or anything like that. Just steady drinking.

It was about this time that I started to make the calls explaining that as a recovering alcoholic I had to limit my exposure to drinking. I suggested that it was a lot easier for us to tolerate alcohol in a larger context: a glass of wine at dinner, a beer at a football game, a cocktail at a jazz club. I don't even see this kind of drinking any more. To a person everyone was respectful and kind while quickly putting me on The Shit List, I suspect.

I was careful not to accuse anyone of being a drunk or a bad host. I tried to be clinical about it but people that drink too much give The Stink Eye to people who abstain. I remember early in my sobriety when I wasn't so forthright getting stuck at a bar for a going away party. There was a guy at my table who was clearly alcoholic. He asked me a few time whether or not I ever drank. You know the type: "You mean you never drink?" Like the phrase "I don't drink" implies that I do indeed drink. This dude kept ordering rounds for everyone. I kept accumulating little shot glasses of liquor at my place which I would push into the center of the table from time to time. He ended up drinking them, probably. He had skin in the game; he wasn't going to waste good alcohol.

I'm done with this. It helped me to see it in black and white.

Hm.

My relationships with my family have changed over the years more or less as a function of how I'm working my Program. I started my recovery as a total people pleaser. Most alcoholics have an unhealthy obsession with being loved by everyone. Most of us are chameleons. "What do you want me to be?" I'd ask. "I'm sure I can do that." When I drank I sort of kind of belonged a little bit to every clique and group, standing as far out on the fringe as I could possibly get. I was there but I didn't fit in, not really. I didn't know who I was so I could hardly allow you to get to know me. What I could permit was to allow you to get to know who I thought you wanted me to be. Whew.

This doesn't work in the long run, especially with relatives. I couldn't let myself be totally controlled by other people and remain happy. I got resentful. I got tired of doing what other people wanted to do all of the time. At the end it didn't even matter if I wanted to do what everyone was doing. Everything made me mad. I simply wanted call the shots some of the time. Everybody does. And to make the whole mess even more convoluted, I was too chicken shit to stand up for myself very often. When I did I felt so guilty that I caved in, and really resented everyone else.

So I shifted into bargaining mode. Because I felt like other people were pushing me around with absolutely no regard for my tender feelings and fragile needs I figured I should get to make the decisions every now and then. At that point I had been in A.A. long enough to know that I shouldn't do this all of the time and that I should compromise as much as possible. Do what I wanted to do but try to accommodate others.

This didn't work very well either. My selfish family had been used to getting their way for so long that they were loath to cede any control. They pushed back, and I often gave in. I don't like conflict, either. It's a nice addition to my people pleasing. And then when I'm mad I whip out the good old passive-aggressive playbook and really go to town. Sometimes I got my way but inevitably these people would poison the event by arriving late or dropping little hints of disapproval.

For example, for many years my mother would host a Thanksgiving meal. We would eat at either 2PM or 4PM, to accommodate church activities and children. This seemed like a weird time to eat to SuperK and me. I have trouble working up a big appetite at four in the afternoon, but we went along with it for many years. Finally, we offered to fix the meal and suggested 1PM, which is a normal meal time. Everyone agreed then showed up whenever they wanted. Some were on time but most weren't. The punctual ones had food to prepare and started to fuss around in the kitchen. We had timed the bulk of the meal for 1PM. We sat and looked each other across the table, watching the food cool.

Eventually I just began to lose interest. We have ceased fighting anybody or anything, the Book says. It's no fun being marginalized and manipulated all of the time. I started to duck events, at first with flimsy excuses and little white lies, then more openly. I quit inviting people to my house, preferring silence to unhappy guests. They wouldn't come -- giving flimsy excuses -- or made me miserable when they did.

Eventually, I have become comfortable with my behavior. It isn't ideal in any Rockwellian sense but I am consistent and forthright. My family doesn't understand. A few of them -- the drinkers, mostly -- are clearly hostile. The rest just keep inviting me to the same things over and over, to my eternal amazement.

I don't feel good writing about this kind of behavior. It feels petty.

The Self

Self: One's own welfare, interest, or advantage; selfishness: as, people concerned only with thought of self.

I do well to remember that alcoholics don't have the market cornered on lousy behavior. We have taken the pursuit of money, power, and sex into the stratosphere but these primary instincts are installed in everyone, and they are very compelling. Many people who don't drink to excess trample their fellows into the muck as they pursue money, power, and sex.

Since I've taken some time to talk about my family members behind their backs I might as well continue the riff until it's played out. Believe it or not, it's been helpful for me to do this. Sometimes other people act like jerks and I may be too close, too involved with the circumstances to look at it dispassionately. A few weeks ago SuperK and I were talking to Spandex after a meeting, describing how our relationships with our families have played out over the years. A couple of times he interrupted to say: "You're kidding me! That's unbelievable! " I was a little startled. I have lived within these dynamics for so long that they seemed normal to me; at least they were familiar.

Yesterday was Halloween; selfish behavior and good cheer was on display for all to see as various relatives tried to maneuver everyone else into positions of submission while pretending that humility was being practiced. And for those who weren't willing to be maneuvered -- OK, that's me, obviously -- the air was thick with unspoken disapproval. I can feel the gossip flowing from different houses this morning.

The problem with expectations is that people can assume that a behavior that's important to them should be important to you, too. But if you're interested in something that they could care less about then, my, how the tables are turned. I've learned in A.A. that I have to show some interest in other people even when I'm not interested in other people as a general rule. I become interested in you when I take the time to listen to you, not when I evaluate everything that's going on from my own self-centered perspective. It's not fair for me to expect someone to be engaged in everything I'm interested in but not make the same effort with them.

This is the definition of selfish.

Hearing The Message

I solicited some advice about the family drinking situation at a meeting last night. This is a men's meeting with a lot of sobriety in attendance. It can get a little over the top from time to time, as men are wont to do, but it's a solid group of guys. Generally, I hesitate bringing up a topic in a lot of meetings because there is a tendency for people to talk at me, to solve my problem, to give me advice. I think that passing along specific recommendations has its part in my recovery, but it should happen before and after the meeting or on the phone, not in the meeting itself. I understand this to be cross-talk, which I hate. If you tell me what to do I'm doing something else. If you tell me what you did, maybe, maybe, I'll listen.


Anyway, the message I heard repeatedly was this: pray for the guy; make yourself available; don't buy into any bullshit. When we're drinking and not interested in stopping there is no solution. I've gotten pretty good over the years detaching from drunks who are drinking: "You want to drink, then drink. You know where to find us." We don't pass this message along with anger or arrogance but as a simple fact. We're like teenagers most of the time. You can't tell us anything. It almost killed me getting sober when I was All In. I didn't have a prayer when I was justifying what I was doing, when I was resisting the message. The guys I hung around with early on didn't waste much time with me, as they shouldn't have. I was still a lost cause at that point; they had people who wanted the help that I was refusing.

The other thing I heard was: Family is hard. It's painful watching someone evaporate, but it hurts in a special way when it's a loved one. And then, to compound the misery, I have codependent family members calling to insist that I drop what I'm doing and Run Over! Right Now! Solve the Problem! I keep giving the same simple message over and over. I feel like I'm talking to a piece of wood; nothing is penetrating. I'm not a woodpecker.


If SuperK is around, I use the speaker phone so that I have a witness to the drama. As a people pleaser, it's not easy delivering blunt advice. Usually she pats me on the shoulder and walks out of the room. There's not a lot to say. It isn't very complicated. I should be the guy who tells people they have fatal diseases or are losing their jobs: "Sit down Mr. Johnson. I have some bad news. . . "

Wouldn't it be GREAT if I could fix everything that is wrong? Boy, would I have a big boat.

Live and Let Live, I Said

Detached: Not involved by emotion, interests, etc.; aloof; impartial.

I've been trying to sort out my impressions about my father's drinking. Not morbid wallowing in the mud kind of thinking, but thinking none the less. I don't know what else to call it. Reflection? Musing? The paralysis of analysis? I have to be careful I don't over think, which I love to do, but sometimes I have to think things through.

Shorty and I usually come up with this conclusion when we talk about any dysfunction that we can detect in our families: "It's painful." I need to embrace that simple concept more often than I do. Sometimes it's just painful watching someone I love go through something that I don't want them to go through. It's even worse when I'm not able to change the behavior that causes the painful circumstances. I don't know why everyone can't see that I know what they should do.

It's delusional for me to think that things would improve if other people would only make the changes that I recommend. Sometimes I can't stop myself from chiming in, usually with negative results. It's even more laughable when I consider that a lot of the time I'm looking at behavior that others have embraced for years and years and decades. Like I have the power to change that.


While I love my father and I know he loves me we don't have much of a relationship. I don't think he was particularly interested in getting married and having a family. When I was growing up he came home from work, ate dinner, and left for his bowling league, poker game, golf league, volleyball league, softball league, The League of Nations, in league with the devil, beleaguered and haggard. He was very active in his church. It's not that things weren't good, it's just that they weren't . . . anything. He wasn't around. He wasn't involved.

I wonder what it was like for him growing up with an alcoholic father. Probably not much different.

I've been able to work through a lot of these feelings over the years. It has been a slow -- sometimes EXCRUTIATINGLY slow -- process but it has produced some results. I can step back from the drama and make informed decisions. Sometimes I feel like a 911 operator when I take calls. I try to calm down the caller and help them handle the crisis. It doesn't feel like a loved one on the other end. I want to help them solve the crisis. I don't feel the obligation to take the entire weight of the crisis on my own shoulders. I don't buy into the drama any more. "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts."

My best friend watched his alcoholic father struggle at the end of his life. He had a lot of regret and a lot of fear about dying. He was adrift spiritually and because he had spent most of his life thinking about himself and neglecting others -- with pretty predictable results in his family -- there wasn't a great rallying around of the troops to help ease his passage. No one was behaving maliciously, they were just doing what they had always done. They were a product of their environment. They were practicing what they had been taught. People can't stop on a dime and change like that.

I have to be very careful when I write about others. It's easy to sit up in my ivory tower and take pot shots at other people. I'm all over your flaws; it's my flaws that I can't see. But I need to sort things out from time to time as well. It's not easy facing some of these problems. Sometimes I feel cold and analytical. Calculating. But I know myself how long and hard a process it was to get to this spot. I didn't decide to stop being involved. I learned how painful it was being involved and how to adapt to manage the pain.

It's not always my fault. The solution is always with me, but it's not always my fault. If you walk up and pop me in the nose, that's not a defect on my part. Letting you do it over and over -- that's the defect.