I'm Working on Intolerance . . . And Impatience. . . And Anger . . . And . . . And . . . And . . .

Recover: To get back; regain; to restore to good health.

Here's a phrase from our literature, written by a physician who was a great friend and supporter to our Fellowship,  describing our founder and some of the other early members: "This man and over a hundred others appear to have recovered."  The word "recovered" pops up in the literature from time to time in what I have always perceived as a pretty innocuous, non-controversial context.

I personally haven't analyzed the shit out of this particular concept.  In fact, I never really paid any attention to the word.  I personally believe that I'm an alcoholic and that if I drink again I'm going to have some problems, some serious problems.  I don't get too wrapped up in the semantics of what I was or what I am now, preferring to believe that me and alcohol are not cool together, no matter what label I put on anything.

 Here in Vacation City there's this weird little clique of people who make a big deal out of being "recovered."  They seem to imply that they're fixed or something.  They say: "I'm Seaweed and I'm a recovered alcoholic."  I never like people who add window dressing to their "I'm an alcoholic" statement.  It seems like a self-centered call for attention, an attempt to make their disease a little more serious or their recovery a little more remarkable.

Their very vocal ringleader spends a lot of time suggesting - in meetings, for god's sake - that a regular meeting-attenders simply substitute one type of addiction - drugs, alcohol - for another type of addiction - The Fellowship.  He tells us all that he's going to take a year off from attending meetings which he does every so often but not nearly often enough for my tastes.  I'd be remiss if I didn't admit I'd be happy if he took a decade or a century off from time to time.  I bet we'd get along just fine without his judgmental point of view.

Don't get me wrong - I'm glad he's sober and I frankly don't care what he believes about alcoholism.  We are, after all, a group of people who wouldn't ordinarily mix, and a lot of the strength of The Program comes from all of this diversity mixing it up and trying to get along.  Still, I wish he'd shut the fuck up.  To me it's like a guy who doesn't enjoy football going to a football game with a lot of guys who love football and bitching about football the whole time.  Don't go to the game or shut up already about it's not a baseball game.  It's a football game!

I think if you want a pass along a terrible message to the newcomer it would be "you're weak if you come to meetings."  That's a terrible message.  And the terrible action following up this terrible message is to disappear for a while with all of your experience, strength, and hope, such as it is, to let the rest of us mortals go it alone.  What if all of us with some time decided, very selfishly, to go off on our own for a while?  I'd hate to think what my recovery would have been like if everyone with some time decided that meetings were a waste of time.

But why listen to me.  Here's what one of our founders said concerning his regular attendance at meetings: "Because in so doing I'm paying my debt to the man who took time to pass it along to me."

Post-Recovery

I have a friend in The Fellowship who has been making some steady progress in his attempts to stay sober and not be an asshole all of the time.  Believe me - I'm sympathetic.  While I have been off the booze for a while the not-being-an-asshole part is a little trickier.  I can often spot someone who I think is making the progression through The Steps.  I think I can see growth spurts in people who are really giving The Steps a whirl.

The anecdote is that he struggled to find steady employment, apparently preferring getting fired to getting a paycheck.  Finally, he got a good job in a field where he has some expertise, only to be promptly transferred to a new store that was a long drive from his home.

What do we do in those cases, post-recovery?  We bitch.  We complain.  We make a not-that-bad situation worse.  We make ourselves miserable and poison our environment.  Or we figure out that our job is to suit up and show up and do the best we can, confident that we can't see the future with any clarity.  My buddy would give me wistful updates about making the best of it whenever I brought up the situation.  Go to work, work cheerfully while at work, stay at work until quitting time, don't try to run the universe, not necessarily in that order.

Of course after a few months he got transferred to a store close to his home.  The transfer was effected because he was doing such a good job that he was promoted.  It is not, apparently, that hard.

A Metaphorical Slog

Trajectory:  Metaphorically, a course of development, such as a war or career.

I find it comforting to recall that the overall trajectory of my life has taken an upward course.  I find this especially comforting when things aren't going the way that I want them to go, when I'm having problems of money, power, and sex, the inevitable problems of money, power, and sex, the ones I've had for years and the ones that I'll continue to have, and also when events in the outside world aren't to my liking, when I'm failing to control everyone and everything to my liking.

Things have gone up.  Relentlessly up.  There are always dips and bumps in the upward trajectory but the overall track has been up and up, steadily up, like a line drive home run still climbing as it clears the center-field fence, lost in the bugs and humidity and gloaming of a July evening.  I need to be careful not to stare at my feet as I hike, looking at all the rocks and sticker bushes, transforming a wonderful experience into a painful slog.  I need to look up at the magnificent vista ahead or around at the magnificent views over the landscape below.

It's going to be OK.  It's always going to be OK.

The Big Lie

Some observations gleaned from powerful people in the public eye.

If a person lies and lies and lies then I'm a fool to believe the validity of anything that person has said.  That person is not going to be inconvenienced by a promise that they've made.  I really try to speak truthfully at all times.  Sure, sometimes I exaggerate and embellish and pretend that I know something with great certainty when I'm sort of winging it, but as a general rule you can take anything I say as the gospel truth.  I cannot stand the feeling that someone doesn't trust my words and I loathe getting caught in a lie.

Unfortunately, I have a natural ability to lie and I enjoy lying and I have a long, storied history of telling lies, all facts which hinder my truth-telling abilities.  Nonetheless, when I slip and when I'm caught I 'fess up.  I don't shrug my shoulders and say: "Tough shit."

If a person has a lot of good qualities and a few bad ones, or conversely, a lot of bad ones and a few good ones, I try to evaluate the overall body of work. I try not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.



Sometimes I see people who are so enamored with a single thing that they can put up with a whole lot of bad things, which is a bad thing.

To Consterne

Consternation: Amazement or horror that confounds the faculties, and incapacitates for reflection; terror, combined with amazement.

From time to time there are events in my life that cause me great consternation.  This is as it should be and as it will undoubtedly continue to be.  I no longer expect life to deliver nothing but good news to my inbox.  I'm going to be have problems of money, power, and sex, and the world will affect me in ways that I find unpleasant.

The amazingly horrible fact here is that some part of me continues to cling to the illusion that this is preventable, controllable.  I am, after all, two years old emotionally.

When I was getting sober I frequently stopped by the Program coffee shop after my evening meetings.  There was a rotating group of men there, sitting around drinking coffee and bullshitting about everything.  These guys had jobs and wives and kids and houses and money in the bank and cars that always started when they turned the key in the ignition, things that I could only wonder about.  I sat on the periphery of the conclave and tried to soak the wisdom in. Ironically, I can't recall a single instance of getting specific advice about working The Steps but I do remember clearly the sense emanating from these guys that everything was going to be OK in the long run, that things were going to work out for the best.  I needed this sense of hope, consumed as I was by wave after wave of impending doom.

Doom:  Destiny, especially terrible.  (Ed. Note: This is an excellent definition).

I try to remember today that the trajectory of my life has been relentlessly upward.  There have indeed been ups and downs and starts and stops, but the curve has curved higher and higher.  I am far better off today than I was a while ago.  I'm not always better today than I was yesterday but I'm always heading in the right direction.

So whatever great tragedy has darkened my doorstep today won't mean shit at some point.

Post Old City Blues

When I lived in The Old City I sought the advice of a financial adviser who I knew from The Program.  In fact, his wife actually sponsored SuperK for a while.  Nice man, thoroughly trustworthy, completely honest, a little whacked with his political views but all in all a solid resource for me as I tried not to do anything especially stupid with the small amount of money that I'd managed to save. And I stuck with him even when he drifted away from regular attendance at meetings.  He stayed sober and his advice usually seemed measured and reasonable, although I didn't always heed said advice.

A few years ago he changed the focus of his business and when SuperK and I declined to follow him down this new path he said some things to me that I found unduly harsh.  We had a lot going on with all the moving so it was just easier to leave the money invested with him even though he pretty much cut off all communication with us.  Finally, we made the effort to engage a new adviser here in Vacation City.  I try to be a stand-up guy so instead of simply booting this dude to the curb I picked up the phone and gave him a call to explain that we were moving on.  Frankly, some of the reason is that it's nice to have a resource available that isn't . . . you know . . . 2500 miles away.

Well, why I expected that to go smoothly is beyond me at the moment.  While he didn't shout obscenities and hurl invective he was not gracious, either.  And what did I expect from an alcoholic who isn't actively working on his recovery, anyway?  I got what I got, I guess.  But it was important for me to try to do the right thing or what I perceive as the right thing.

Distraughtness

Supplicate: To ask for earnestly and humbly.

One of the supplications I supplicate for in my morning meditation - what else do you do with a supplication, anyway, but supplicate it? - is that I be shown how I may be of service to another person during the day.  I don't know anything about the "earnestly" part and I'm pretty unclear about the "humbly" part, too, but I supplicate to the best of my ability.  Continuing my theme of extreme wariness about praying with special wariness about specific prayers I figure that this entreaty is vague enough that it can't boomerang back and whack me in the head.

There's a very, very nice woman who is always at my morning meeting who suffers from some kind of mental or emotional disability.  She's a good member in good standing who arrives early to an early meeting so that she can help set up the room and make the coffee.  But talking to her can be a challenge, you know?  She can't hear very well and she tends to get emotional and hard to follow.  Being an outgoing sort I figure that one of the ways I can be a member of good standing myself is to make sure that everyone at the meeting feels welcome.  I know who the regulars are and I'm alert to anyone who isn't engaged in the ebb and flow of the meeting aftermath.

The other day I inquired about this lady's grandson who is bouncing back and forth between unstable parents.  Boy, did I get an earful.  Fifteen minutes later, standing in a completely empty room, all of my friends and colleagues long gone, the people I really wanted to talk to, and she hasn't come up for air.  She was very emotional with the weeping and distraughtness and everything.

I thought: "This is being of service to another person."  And I don't want that to sound like I think I'm some special guy for taking the time to talk to this woman - I just asked the right question at the right time to someone who needed to talk, and isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?  Now, we're best friends.  

Simple as that.