Stayin' Alive

I used to a Program Absolutist - it was The Program or get the hell out of here.  I no longer think that way, sort of, when it suits my purpose.  I always ask people who are trying to figure out how to stay stopped: "Are you sober and are you happy?"  If you can answer Yes to both of these questions I say: "Rock on, dude."  I cannot improve on those results.  These are the desired results.

Some of us use religion instead of The Program.  Some of us get all book smart and use our knowledge to stay sober.  Some of us just seem to gut it out.  Not all of us are in the gutter when we come in here and some of us managed to put together stretches of sobriety before we quit drinking for good.  I never could figure out people who had jobs and families and houses.  That kind of shit seemed so adult.

I would recommend that if you're going to use The Fellowship that you should give the 12 Step technique a whirl.  We are, after all, a 12 Step Program that is based on the 12 Steps.  

I will say this about the friendships that I have made in The Fellowship: they really are based on The Fellowship.  I meet a lot of nice people with whom I develop relationships, but I find they endure when everyone is throwing a lot of time and energy into their recovery.  I'm also intrigued when I talk to someone who has quit working on their recovery - it's like talking to someone in a time warp.  I can't escape the feeling that I've gone back in time as if I'm picking up on a conversation with a person who hasn't changed a bit.  It's beyond weird.

Seaweed: Trusted Advisor

Advice:  An opinion recommended or offered, as worthy to be followed.

So my parents are selling their home.  To be helpful I spoke on their behalf with a real estate agent that I trust very much and also with a guy who buys older homes and fixes them up to resell.  Also a guy that I trust a lot.  I wasn't asked to provide these two excellent, excellent, EXCELLENT options for my parents, either one of which would be an excellent solution to their situation.

Self-satisfied, I sit back and wait.

Somewhere down the road they select their own real estate agent and take it upon themselves to have a little pre-sale work done on the house.  They did not call me.  They did not solicit my advice.  They just went ahead and did it, my sister helping a lot.

I went on-line and saw the house listed for far more money than I think that they're going to get and my initial reaction is this: "I hope they don't get what they're asking."  These are my parents whom I love, mind you, that I apparently hope will experience some kind of financial setback.  Not to mention the fact that if they get more money and don't end up spending it then at least half of it would come my way at some point and what do I care about someone else's business, anyway?  None of this makes the slightest bit of rational sense.

Sure, I've got my ego under control.  Sure, I'm a healthy, healthy, HEALTHY guy

A Thing That Really Sucked

Suck:  To be inferior or objectionable.

The chairman of my morning meeting is a guy that I don't like very much, if "by don't like very much" you mean "can't stand."  He has been sober a long time and is very knowledgeable about the history of The Fellowship - which I like - but he talks at every meeting and he talks far too long, both of which annoy the hell out of me,  probably because it deprives me of the chance to speak at every meeting and at great length.  Irregardless, I always greet him and I always try to concentrate on the good in what he says instead of getting irritated at the things about him that I don't like.

He practices a brand of spirituality that I'm going to be immersed in when I travel to India so I took a minute to tell him about our trip.  He mentioned that there are a couple of official religions there that don't see eye to eye (imagine that - groups of people associated with a religious group that don't get along) and, as a result, tend to self-segregate.

"Well, we do a pretty good job of that here, too," I mused.  I think this is an understandable human characteristic - if you like Fruity Peebles and your lodge is pouring bowls of Count Chocula every day your best bet is to find another breakfast spot.  Proclaiming loudly "I don't like Fruity Peebles" over and over isn't going to get you too far.

"You know what I mean," he said, pausing a minute before adding that we'd all be better off if a politician he didn't like would only vacate his office, using a terrible epithet to modify as horrible a racial slur as you could imagine.  It was unclear to me how he managed to segue from a discussion about religious practices to this disturbing conclusion.

I reacted as if I had been punched in the stomach.

"Don't say that," I said.

"I think I said something I shouldn't have said," he remarked.

I was walking away at that point, showing him a lot of back.

"You shouldn't have said that.  You shouldn't have said that."  I wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible.  I don't know what made me feel worse - that he said what he said or that he somehow, some way, thought I would be receptive to that kind of remark.  Why do people who can feel such hate feel so comfortable expressing it openly?  What did he see in me that made him think I'm a racist?  He's probably not thinking about me at all.

So, when he next talks, how do you think I'm going to react?  He's toast.  I won't accept a single thing he utters as worthwhile now because I got to see the filth underneath the veneer.

This Program - indeed, any spiritual program - preaches love and kindness and understanding and tolerance.  If you don't feel these things - and all of us, from time to time, aren't going to feel these things - then your spirituality is sucking, and whether that is a temporary state or a permanent one is up to you to decide.

Some Helpful Quotes

Resentment:  A feeling of anger or displeasure stemming form belief that one has been wronged by others or betrayed; indignation.

"Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means."

"The moment we ponder a twisted or broken relationship with another person, our emotions go on the defensive.  To escape looking at the wrongs we have done another, we resentfully focus on the wrongs he has done us."

"Let's remember that alcoholics are not the only ones bedeviled by sick emotions."

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us."

"Since defective relations with other human beings have nearly always been the immediate cause of our woes . . . "

"Or, if my disturbance was seemingly caused by the behavior of others, why do I lack the ability to accept conditions I cannot change? . . . . If I am unable to change the present state of affairs, am I willing to take the measure necessary to shape my life to conditions as they are?"

Remember, Seaweed

Ambition:  Desire to distinguish one's self from from other people; eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction.

Anonymity: The spiritual foundation of all of our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.  That is quite a statement.  I am constantly reminded as I study our Steps and Traditions how important it is for me to keep breaking down my ego.  That embodies a lot of what The Program means to me: Ego Destruction.  I'm reminded that personal ambitions has no place in recovery.  I personally need to keep trying to right-size my ego.  I'm not a piece of garbage but I'm not All That, either.

I think that I'm always trying to promote myself - sometimes overtly, obviously, and sometimes in ways so subtle that I manage to bullshit even myself.

Well, stop doing that, says this Tradition.

I also think that this Tradition reminds me to avoid gossip.  My sponsor never lets me run down another individual.  If someone has really gotten my goat and I need to unburden my feelings so they don't migrate into a resentment, he'll listen politely but end the conversation by saying: "Remember, Seaweed: principles before personalities."  I try not to say anything about anyone that I wouldn't say right to that individual's face.

Monks In Red Robes With Saffron Coll

Meditate:  To contemplate; to keep the mind fixed upon something; to sit or lie down and come to a deep rest while still remaining conscious.  

I'm not sure I'm ever going to fully understand how meditation works.  I make the time to do it each day and I almost always feel better when I'm done - calmer, more accepting, that kind of shit.  My mind, to my thinking, is not cooperating.  It's very, very active, bouncing all over the place, all kinds of thoughts and impulses and urges trying to make themselves known.  

Let them go.  Let them pass through, without judgement, without trying to control them.  They are just thoughts.

Dude asked me to help him work through The Steps again.  He really wants my advice, he says, but I'm dubious.  I think he knows exactly what he wants to do and he'd like me to be there when he goes through the process he wants to go through.  Sounds good to me.  Anybody doing some reading and writing about The Steps is doing something worthwhile.  What do I know, anyhow?  My friend has been sober for a while so it's not like he's going to mess something up.

Dorothy, On Acid

Hold:  To impose restraint upon; to limit in motion or action; to bind legally or morally; to confine; to restrain.

Money and power and sex, oh my - Dorothy.  As in: Wizard of Oz Dorothy, on acid.

Funny how these things that I want take charge of my life the more I want them, the more I try to hang on to them.  If I want something to limit, bind, confine, restrain, or impose upon me the surest way for me to do it is to try to grasp them tightly.  If I want to be controlled then I should try to control.  These instincts are the strangler figs of the moral world.  They slowly grow up around me, choking me, until the center rots away and the only thing left is a great, big old strangler fig.