Listen to My Own Advice

I spoke at meeting this week.  I was brilliant, of course.  That goes without saying.  Funny, warm, insightful, capable of solving all of the world’s problems with a wave of my magic wand.

And then I woke up, and I was still me.

Anyway, people were sharing about some of the stresses associated with the holiday season.  I've been through a number of holidays and I'm OK today with the whole deal.  I'm not suggesting that this peace of mind wasn't hard earned and slow to come but I no longer take the holidays that seriously.

"What did you get last year?" my sponsor asked me.  "You don't remember, do you?  Then how important was it?"

The jist of my share was that it's not that important.  By "that" I mean "anything."  It's going to be OK.  I don't even know what the topic is but I know it's going to be OK.  I realize this doesn't sound too profound but, man, is there any advice more appropriate to any situation than that?  In my case everything has worked out in the long run.  I just have to trust in the process even though the current moment might be uncomfortable.

I talk the talk but do I walk the walk?  We moved yesterday.  Everything went very well but a move is a move is a move; in a word: traumatic.  Today I try not to make unimportant things important and I also make sure that I don't pretend that stressful things aren't stressful.  I was lying in bed last night, hyperventilating, battling an anxiety attack, wondering where all of that insightful advice had gone.  I'm an alcoholic; I can find the problem in any situation.

Uh, it's going to be OK?

React.

I'm all over the place.


"Are you talking again?" said my sponsor, putting his arm around my shoulder in a reassuring fashion.  Either that or he was getting ready to break my neck, which I probably deserved at the time.  "Haven't I taught you anything? Do yourself a big favor and try not to talk today."


We pause when agitated.  In my case the advice is to pause when awake.  Then extend that pause for the rest of my life.  If I compare the number of times in my life when I shouldn't have said anything but did anyway to the number of times when I should have said something but didn't, the ratio is like a billion to one.  Still, my tendency is to REACT.  I know everything.  I know what's best for you and if you would only SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE then I could straighten you out.  Hang on a second while I get a pen and paper from the box I'm living in temporarily.


I knew a guy once who was homeless for a while.  He lived in a box in some woods near the river.  "I had a condo with a pool," he'd tell people.  I heard another guy share that he got kicked out of a detox center once wearing one tennis shoe.  Where the other one was he had not a clue.  He took off walking . .  in the winter. . . in the snow.  Somebody took pity on him and gave him a cowboy boot for his unshod foot.  His mood brightened and his resolve to stay sober melted in the summer sun.  "This isn't too bad," he thought, deciding to drink again.


During the holidays be careful not to let family and friends push your buttons.  Me, I'm all buttons.  Everything is a button.  I'm one huge red button marked with these instructions: "Push Here!"


It's just another day.  Everything is going to be OK.

Solution V. Problem

Problem:  Very difficult to train or discipline: as, a problem child.


There's a great AC/DC song called "Problem Child."  You really should listen to it.  Not only are the lyrics great it has a chord progression that will rattle your breastbone.


Anyway, I don't want to get distracted here with AC/DC.  God forbid I get rolling on Black Sabbath.  I'd never get anywhere if that happens.  The point is that I have a tendency to dwell in the problem.  I'm familiar with the problem.  I've spent a lot of time there and it's a weirdly comforting place for me to be.  I conjure problems out of thin air and then I try to weasel out of the consequences.  It never occurs to me until it's too late that maybe I could simply avoid problems or work on solutions that would prevent their existence or alleviate their intensity.


Solution:  The act, method, or process of solving a problem.


I believe that one of the great strengths of The Program is that it constantly forces me to circle back around to the the solution.  This is not someplace that I want to go.  My nature is to feint, prevaricate, and delay until the problem is avoided.  I love that meetings in The New City invariably start out with someone reading a section from one of our books.  That's where the solutions are found.


Let me give you an example.  Let's say SuperK is mad at me.  This is the problem.  This is a BIG problem.  If I choose to live in the problem then I'll deny that I've done anything wrong or I'll go on the offensive (the best defense is a BIG offense) and point out things that she has done wrong in the past, which is a not so clever way of avoiding the present.


I really don't need to hear other people share stories of arguments with their spouses.  Sometimes it's helpful over coffee or after a meeting because it helps me feel less isolated, but what I truly need is to hear some solution talk.  Acceptance.  Locating my part in the argument and then trying to correct that behavior.  Compassion for someone else who may be having a bad day. 


Yeah, that kind of stuff.

The Monsters Are Running Wild

Big change always makes me consider what a gift I have for accentuating the negative at the expense of the positive.  Positive thinking is for quitters.  It takes a real master of successful living to ferret the negative out of whatever situation is confronting me.  And I'm  not talking about seeing the negative when I have the flu or SuperK is yelling at me.  That's child play.  Any idiot can feel bad when things aren't going his way.  I'm talking about getting depressed because I'm going on vacation.  


There's not a situation that I can't make bad.  In my mind.  Where it's dark and gloomy and the monsters are running wild.

Checking In.

Checking in with the Minor Buddha this morning I heard this: "You can't make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now.  As soon as you do that, changes flow naturally."


Scholars agree that Buddhism got rolling in the 5th or 6th century, more or less.  B.C., that is; not A.D.  That would make Buddhism about . . . let's see . . . subtract the two, carry the sum of all of your defects plus any current resentments,  divide by Pi . . . well, that would make it really old.  Slightly older than The Program.  And what did I find in this ancient philosophy?  Until I do a searching and thorough personal inventory I don't have a very good chance of growing as a person.


I love how our literature is always trying to get the focus off of "them" and back to "me."  Keep looking inside.  Keep searching for the solution to all of my problems inside me.

Resentment

Resentment:  A feeling of displeasure and indignation, from a sense of being injured or offended.
(Ed. note: I cannot BELIEVE that I have never used this definition in one of my postings.  That is beyond belief).


Our Program suggests that we are powerless over people, places, and things.  It also suggests that there is nothing more injurious to our peace of mind and threatening to our sobriety than a good resentment, carefully prepared and well-seasoned, watered, weeded, and protected from wild animals with sturdy fencing.  If I spent ten percent of the time nurturing my gratitude as I do on my resentment building, I would be one $#!! grateful dude.


Regarding resentment toward "people," I say: "Duh."  People are the worst.  They get in my way.  They impede my progress.  They do it wrong, and this makes me mad, so I resent them.


Regarding resentment toward "things," I say: "Whuzzat?"  I'll have to think about that a bit.  I'm going to toss institutions in this category: the guvmint, the cops, employers, anyone with power over me, which I must by nature and nurture resent because they are doing it wrong, and this makes me mad, so I resent them.


Regarding resentment toward "places," I say: "Boy, do I have a resentment over a place right now and I'm having trouble shaking it."  When the place arises in pleasant conversation I accentuate the venomous immediately, surprising myself with the venom level.  That's messed up.  That's being resentful at the nature of something.  That's like being resentful that electrons get to circle the nucleus of the atom while the stupid protons and neutrons just get to hang out in one vibrating place.  Talk about something that is out of my control.  And the place generating this resentment is perfectly fine.  Almost everything that I resent is perfectly fine.

Action!

Action:  Behavior; habitual conduct.


I'm fascinated still with the difference between actions and intentions, between what I say and what I do.  "Talk is cheap," someone once said.  I think it was my sponsor.  


I'm a world class talker, a legendary intend-er.  I talk and talk and talk, then I go out and behave in a way that has little to do with what I've said.  Talk is cheap.  Talk is easy.  Behaving well is much more difficult than intending to behave well.  How do I behave?  What were my actions?  That's where the rubber hits the road.  I don't even believe half of the crap that comes out of my mouth.


I believe that this is why so many of us get frustrated with politicians and organized religion and other institutions.  We hear people -- important, powerful people --  say one thing and then behave in a way that is completely opposite.  It seems often to be hypocritical.  No one likes to be called out by someone who is not behaving very well, especially when they're criticizing you for something that they are doing themselves.  It's much the same as being lectured to about your drinking by someone who doesn't drink.


As Homer Simpson says: " I HATE to be called a liar.  Unless I'm lying or about to tell a lie or have just finished lying."  This is why The Program is so compelling.  We're not prodded to do what someone says.  We're encouraged to sit in the corner, with our coat pulled up to our ears and our mirrored shades on, and watch the behavior of our recovery mates.  We find someone who behaves in a way we find attractive and we talk to that person.  There are a lot of people who talk real purty in the rooms but don't back it up with good behavior.