The Big Step

My aunt with leukemia passed away last week at an area hospice. She was a lovely, lovely woman and will be missed. Her last days were spent heavily sedated. We're all glad she has made that big step into the next, better place.

I went out to visit a couple of times. One time, actually. I don't know why I said "a couple" except that it makes me sound better. This is why I try not to talk much or to use numbers when I do. I usually exaggerate my actions to make myself appear more impressive than I actually am.

Believe me, it's not how I wanted to spend my precious free time. Cancer is a dark and ravaging disease. It was not pleasant being with an unresponsive person who was close to death. It isn't the cancer that kills a person, per se -- it's that the cancer cells overwhelm normal functioning systems until they can't run the body anymore. It was a losing battle.

It occurred to me at some point that it would be the right thing to do. Not the pleasant thing, certainly, but the right thing. This awareness is a big enough jump for me; the acting on the realization is a whole 'nother thing. For much of my life everything that I did had to have "pleasant" attached to it. I worked hard at avoiding unpleasantness. I really dislike pain.

It also occurred to me that maybe my visit would be some comfort to the immediate family. This is probably obvious to most people but not to me. And today I think there is a seamless connection between this life and the purely spiritual realm that follows. We step over in the blink of an eye, smoothly from here to there, just like that. It's like watching the last bit of light wink out as the sun drops below the horizon. It's a powerful thing being around when that is happening. It's part of life in a weird kind of way.


I did find myself enjoying some delicious self-satisfying judgement over the behavior of some other people. Some people are eager to be around during the good times, then melt into the background when when the atmosphere sours.


Recovering alcoholics, we can handle the pain.

Through the Lens, Darkly

One of the things that I find so attractive about The Program is watching alcoholics do their best to squeeze every last bit of pleasure out of every circumstance imaginable. We even give it our best shot when things are not going according to plan. It's an art form. Good, bad, awful, whatever, we work our asses off extracting every morsel of positivity that we can. We're not perfect -- we're prone to fits of depression and pissy outrage from time to time but it's not our default setting anymore. We're in the game, at least.

Then I find myself in situations where I have to spend time with my Earth People family. They're certainly not bad people; they just get quickly swept up in the swirl of negativity that envelopes our world. It's not hard to do; our news media, our politicians, our entire culture is fascinated with the dark side of things. We like to ladle up a dark roux of pain. It's easier than focusing on the positive.

I get to see people take difficult situations and make them totally miserable, for themselves and for every one around them. I took a fake cell phone call yesterday simply so that I could remove myself from a particularly painful situation. It wasn't bad externally for the unhappy players -- it was bad internally. While technically what I did wasn't honest, it was better than freaking out and saying what I thought of the behavior I was witnessing, which would have broken my cardinal rule of Keeping My Mouth Shut!

I will tell you that I sold that fake phone call. I should have been in the CIA. I would have been a great secret agent.

Hidy Ho

I got up yesterday and went to a speaker meeting. I don't normally attend lead meetings, being a solid member of the ADD MTV generation, and horribly judgemental to boot. If anything lasts more than two minutes and isn't as fascinating as I am -- no mean feat -- then I can't be bothered to pay attention.

The guy who spoke is an old friend who had 5 or 6 years of sobriety when I first staggered into The Program. I've known him for a long time and always identified with his opinions and experiences. After I heard him speak, I knew why. We did a lot of the same things: the Marijuana Maintenance Plan, the collecting of sobriety tokens while not bothering to actually stay sober, the atrocious behavior in early sobriety while we were learning that there was a lot more to sobriety than just not drinking.

It's not that people in recovery don't have any problems. It's that we face them with such good humor and optimism most of the time. It really is a choice to look on the bright side of things, not something that you have or you don't. I felt good when I left. I felt like I was part of something amazing.

On the flip side of the coin the last week has seen some family struggles: an aunt passed away, a mother in law losing her independence, a father back in the hospital. None of this is good stuff but it's not half as bad as some of the participants are implying. I like how in recovery we buckle up and get to work when things are a pain in the ass. We don't sit around and bitch about.

Well, we do sit around and bitch about it but not forever.

Evil. EEEEEvil.

More of the eternal quest for what I want. More rationalization and justification so that I can get what I want. I can't think of any better way to spend my time than to think about me and what I want.

I do not trust myself most of the time. I do not trust my own thinking. My brain is out to get me. It thinks it has my best interests at heart but a lot of the time it screws everything up. It isn't to be trusted with the children. There are a few pieces missing or some counterfeit parts made at a jungle chop shop in the Lesser Maldives, using conscripted labor, installed in mission critical places.

It's not a healthy machine.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

Me, actually. I do if the lurking in my own heart is any indication.

On the Porch

Once or twice a week I attend an early morning meeting at an old clubhouse near the urban core of my largish city. There are a few guys who have been sober for a while, and there are almost always some people who come from one of the many half way houses or shelters downtown. I get to see some friends and I get to do some service work.

Being on the outgoing side I've always tried to make people who are new -- new to the area, that meeting, sobriety, whatever -- feel welcome. I enjoy it. I'm good at it. I'll talk to anybody, anywhere, any time, just not for too long -- I get bored easily. When I was new I traveled incessantly for work and was often surprised when members of a group paired off after the meeting and left me standing there alone, staring at the wall. I could have been ready to drink.

One day this week I was talking to a new guy who looked to be down on his luck. He was telling me about his efforts to get into a couple of local shelters and, frankly, to keep himself fed.

"Where are you staying now?" I asked.

"On the porch," he said, gesturing to the front of the building. "I'm sleeping on the porch."

This is not a comfortable porch with furniture or a roof. It's made of concrete and it's open to the elements. It's getting warm here but it's not warm at 4AM.

My friend was matter-of-fact. He wasn't complaining or asking me for money or anything.

He was sleeping on the porch, one day sober.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Adventure: The encountering of danger; an exciting and dangerous undertaking; an unusual, stirring experience, often of romantic nature.

I'm ready for an adventure. The problem with me is that I'm always ready for an adventure. I'm never ready to clean the toilets or cut the grass. But I do feel the need to have my knees buckled by something unbelievable right now. I'm a good alcoholic this way, always looking for the next buzz.

I was fortunate enough when I was pretty newly sober to be able to visit Venice. It was a little complicated getting there -- trains, planes, water taxis, and the like -- and I had not yet mastered the ability to handle any commotion at all. Not that I'm good with fear today but at least it's not a rout anymore. All of the day's travel had triggered a tsunami of fear and angst. I remember like it was yesterday the emotions that swept over me when I stepped out of the train station and the city unfolded in front of me. I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. It was like walking into a painting. I had to sit down on the steps of the station and regain my composure. It was the first time I truly understood the concept of culture shock in all of its terrible fury and beauty.

I've spent some time talking to people about acedia -- boredom -- lately. It's a tricky concept. I think in my case a lot can be summed up by the fact that I'm often ungrateful. If I'm bored with what I have then I'm assuming that I want something else. Anything else.

Maybe what you have.

Cosmic Karma

Karma: The totality of a person's actions in one of the successive states of his existence, thought of as determining his fate in the next.

I don't think we can really know the impact that we have on people, and on the world. That's a good reason to be as nice as we can to everybody, if we need a reason. Stuff has a way of looping around in ways we can't see or can't predict. This is why I try to be nice -- not because I really enjoy being nice or am particularly good at it. It's that the world seems to be a better place when I project some good vibes into the mix.

It's just that easy.