Relapse

Relapse:  To recur; to worsen, be aggravated; to slide or turn back into a former state or practice.

I had a new-ish guy call me yesterday and reveal that he thinks his best friend in The Program is using.  I quickly dispensed glib and insightful advice along these lines: "Uhhhhh.   Ummmmm.   Duhhhhhh" and other bon mots of equal worth.  It's really hard to tell someone that alcoholics drink sometimes - it's what we do - and that often the only support we can offer is to be there should the drinker want to talk about it.  There was nothing I hated more than having someone who wasn't drinking tell me I shouldn't drink.  I knew I was messing up - I didn't need anyone piling on.  I know I should stop eating breakfast cookies, too, but eat them I do.  It's isn't helpful to hear that maybe an apple would be a better choice.  I'm always going to choose the breakfast cake over the fresh fruit.

And I think we need to be careful that we don't gossip about a potential offender, too.  It's not our business to go around whispering: "I think so and so is drinking."  That doesn't help anyone and god help you if the guy isn't drinking and he finds out you've been telling people behind his back that he is.  That's burning your bridges, bombing the rubble, and burying the crap that's left  You can kiss that relationship good-bye.

That being said I personally don't take any crap from anyone.  If you want to drink and skulk around that's up to you but I'm not going to hang around with you.  It doesn't do me any good and it makes me mad when someone goes back out, especially someone I care about.  They've taken my trust and tossed it away.  When someone comes back to us I thank them for returning but I never tell them that what they did is OK.

Because it isn't.

Words of Wisdom

"I don't understand happiness only as someone just always smiling and laughing.  It's more like inner happiness, where you feel you have done everything right in your life, you haven't made anybody unhappy.  You have a certain kind of peace and balance in yourself, and you are not anxious about what will happen the next minute or the next day.  You let it go and you don't worry, and you lead a balanced life."

Interview with a 93 year old man.

FutBall

Opinion:  A belief that a person has formed on a topic or issue.

I learned long ago that no one wants my advice, probably because my own actions and the chaos resultant demonstrate that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.  I now believe that no one is interested in my opinions, either.  Most people believe what they believe and they aren't going to change based on what I say.  It's not like I'm coming up with new ways of looking at things.  I need to keep my mouth shut.  Nobody is interested in what I think of things, and I say this with a great deal of serenity and understanding.  I'm not changing my opinion very often, either.

I was at a meeting recently where a young woman celebrating a year of sobriety talked about losing some of the fire that we all have when we're brand spanking new in recovery.  I get that - recovery can be time-consuming and frustrating so when the early big gains start to diminish a lot of us drift away.  I haven't seen her since.  Huh.

At this same meeting a friend talked about getting his latest paycheck only to see that the IRS had garnished a big chunk of the money to satisfy back taxes that he owed.  He spent a lot of time in a government office getting the money restored and setting up a payment plan so future paychecks wouldn't be garnished as well.  He was not overjoyed at any of this.  I know that I thought that sobriety was going to be enough, that all would be forgiven.  I didn't sign up for Freedom that required Sacrifice.  I do know that I do not regret my past - I'm not afraid of anyone at this point.

Worry 101

The mind of an alcoholic and such matters . . . 

Laminate:  Material formed of thin sheets glued together.

A while back SuperK and I had the perfectly good carpet covering the floors of our trailer house ripped out so that we could install laminate flooring.  I didn't know what laminate was until I looked it up just now.  It's still somewhat unclear to me.  The stuff we have looks like wood so now our trailer house has a wood-like substance running from aluminum-shod wall to aluminum-shod wall.  We run a classy operation here.

We have been very happy with our new laminate floors.  A few months ago I happened to stumble across a news broadcast which alleged that there were types of laminate flooring where the thin sheets were glued together with a substance containing formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.  I did a little research and sure enough! - our laminate flooring was one of the offending brands.  So . . .  I'm living in a tin can pulsating with wave after wave of white-hot formaldehydic poison.

When I'm dying of something the best place to go is the internet, where I can confirm whatever irrational, paranoid thoughts I have pulsating through the fetid sewer that exists between my ears, and my research did not disappoint.

On a positive note I try to remember that I didn't bat an eye purchasing acid and pills and weed from guys who looked like they played lead guitar for a Norwegian death metal band, and I'm still walking the face of this earth, albeit a little more slowly than before.  If that didn't kill me I don't think this will, either.

And the facts . . . as facts are . . . are nuanced and inconclusive.  The test that found the formaldehyde was destructive in nature - the flooring was pulverized and then measured for formaldehyde so as long as we're not grinding up flooring and stuffing our mattresses with the debris we're probably OK.  Plus, the offending company mounted a robust defense debunking the alleged formaldehyde poisoning and a third party company also performed some testing which showed no off-gassing out of the ordinary plus we live in Vacation City where we have the windows open all of the time which one would assume would allow the poisoning fumes to vent plus did I mention that I used to drop acid by sucking a sheet of paper embossed with a picture of Satan that I bought off a dude in the back of a van at a Black Sabbath concert who advertised by yelling: "Acid!!  Weed!!  Quaaludes!!" at the top of his voice?

There is a seemingly endless supply of stupid things to worry about.

I'm off formaldehyde poisoning at this point and on to colon cancer.

Family Is Hard, Unless It's Someone Else's Family

I had back to back phone conversations with friends in The Program who are dealing with family situations right now - irritating family situations, as if there were any other kind.  It is amazing how we have to learn how to compromise, to get along with people who get under our skin from time to time.  One of the guys is on a vacation where a couple of his relatives are making what I consider pretty outrageous demands on everyone else without offering any concessions on their part.  I listened and I thought: "Well, tell them that you're going to do this and this and that , and they can go %$!! themselves if they don't like it."  I didn't say that but I did think it.  That I wouldn't have the chutzpah to do that with my family was immaterial to my desire to give him advice on what to do with his family.

We find ourselves in situations where we can't just do what we want, especially with family and jobs.  I don't think my buddy would put up with this kind of behavior from a friend.  It really is crappy behavior.  I know when I'm dealing with an individual who makes a lot of demands on me without offering much in return I go find someone else to talk to.  This, of course, is not practical when we're talking about in-laws and parents and the guy in the cubicle right next door.

The trick for me is to find that middle ground.  I'm not a doormat and I'm not a sultan - I'm somewhere in the middle.  Sometimes I think I avoid confrontation at my own expense, and then I remember that I'm the one with a Program, I'm the guy with the tools to handle life sanely.  Frankly, I don't know how people make it down the block without the tools I've got.

My friend really is a nice guy.  I wouldn't have been so generous with my spirit.  He's one of those guys who's going to be up in Heaven, peering through the sulfur and bubbling, molten limestone at me, wherever I end up.

Outside Issues

At my excellent, excellent men's meeting last night we're currently studying The Traditions and the entree served up was Tradition 10 which warns us about taking sides on outside issues.  It's a good Tradition that was undoubtedly born in a veritable shitstorm of controversy - none of the lessons we've learned have come easily.  We're lucky if we can get through a discussion of what kind of coffee cups to buy without a fistfight breaking out.  No doubt well-meaning members were trying to draw The Fellowship into taking sides on all kinds of worthy causes. 

The intent here is avoid anything that might be an excuse for the newcomer to bolt.  I know personally that I didn't want to be in a meeting and I looked hard and wide and deep for reasons that The Program wasn't for me.  And I found them, apparently, seeing as it took me 18 months to get sober.  If someone had been taking a public position on with which I vehemently disagreed I would have been out of there, and I was barely in there, anyway.

The conversation veered into how hard it is to listen to someone in the real world discussing controversial matters - religion, politics, morality, money - with which I might disagree.  I want to get in there and say my piece, make the offender see the error of his ways.  Now, granted my opinions on these things have been consistent for a long time - there's very little chance that I'm going to change my mind - and I'm in a Program that stresses open mindedness, so the chance that I'm going to cause a sea change in some blowhard holding forth at loud volume about the size of the federal government or the health of the church or appropriate sexual behavior is damn small.

Usually  I keep my mouth shut, an excellent position for my mouth to be in.  But I listen and I judge and then I go home and have long conversations, arguments, shouting matches with some dude who isn't there and who couldn't pick me out of a police line-up.  There's this one guy in particular who holds forth at a high volume at my exercise club, opining stupidly and offensively, in my opinion, on all matter of outside issues.  I don't know him.  He's always been friendly to me, giving me shit about how my little thrift-shop suit jacket is out of place at the pool.  Still, I go home and have extended arguments with him, in my head, debunking his stupid opinions.  The chance that he would change his mind is vanishingly small and the reasons for why I give a shit about his opinions are opaque even to me.

One of my friends last night said, in essence, that the world doesn't need me constantly weighing in on every last little thing going on.  The world doesn't need my opinion.  The world doesn't need me talking.  The world is going to be a better place if I try not to talk.  Think about it - how often has someone said to me: "Hey, Seaweed, what do you think about the Fed's policy on mortgage relief?"  Nobody cares.  They want to tell you about their opinion, not hear about yours.

Thing Is . . .

The thing is sometimes I have something to say and sometimes I don't.  That doesn't mean that when I don't have something to say that I don't say something just that I shouldn't open my mouth.  I get struck by things or feel insightful about a situation and it bubbles out.  Other times I sit slack-jawed, a thin string of drool hanging from my lip.  I don't know.

Ponder the moment.

When I was sick I was taking an aspirin and an Advil a few times a day because I felt so crappy. At some point I walked by a little bright orange aspirin and a little shit-brown Advil lying on a bookshelf next to our mantel clock, which is on a bookshelf for some reason, not the mantel.  I haven't looked at the mantel recently - maybe it's piled with books.  I don't know whether I had in mind to ingest this medicine and got distracted by some bright, shiny thing, forgetting about the intention completely, or whether I knew I had lost them relatively quickly, searched unsuccessfully for a bit, then replaced them with two of their brethren which I did successfully ingest.  They're staying put - it's what passes for art in my household.