What's the Point?

Sometimes you just get on a roll with people . . . . 

I bought a pair of glasses and a couple of boxes of contacts from the Costco optical department.  (Fair disclosure: I fucking love Costco).  I drove to the store a few days ago to pick up both orders.  I drove down to the store specifically to pick them up.  There was no other reason for me to go to the store.  I did not want to go to the store.  I wanted to do something else.  This was a special trip to get my optical goods.

When I arrived I took a little number from one of those little number dispensing devices (Fair disclosure: I fucking hate those little number dispensing devices, preferring to wade into the crowd, swinging my elbows, and get served first) and saw that there were about ten people in line before me.  So I shopped and bought some crap I didn't really need, checked out, took my purchases to the car, and returned to the optical department where the little device told me that there were still about ten people ahead of me.  So I went home.  Didn't feel like waiting.  No big deal.

Today I made a special trip back down to Costco and found that the situation hadn't changed.  In fact, it looked to me like some of the people who were waiting a few days ago were still there.  I asked one of the optical people if I had to take a little number if I was just picking up an order. 

"Contacts or glasses?"

Both.

"You can get the contacts, but not the glasses because we have to fit them for you."

OK.  How long do you think the wait is?

The kid looked at the line and then back at me.  He appeared to be trying to come up with a figure, a rosy figure, which still would have been a lie.  I know - I'm a liar so I can tell when someone is getting ready to lie.  It would have been a kind, optimistic lie, but a lie nonetheless.

A colleague behind him said: "It's going to be a while."  I wasn't sure why she was butting in but . . . 

OK.  Can I get the contacts then?

As the kid was getting the contacts out I said:  I'll tell you what - can you give me both orders now and I'll come back and get the glasses fitted later, when you aren't so busy?  (Fair disclosure: I don't think I added "when you aren't so busy" but it makes me sound better . . .  in retrospect).

The woman chimes in with: "Sir, there are ten people in line before you."

I'm not trying to cut in line.  I'd just like to pick my order up.  

At this point I didn't know why she was talking to me at all, let alone in this confrontational tone.  I'm really a very low-key person, relaxed in demeanor and friendly, and I wasn't trying to get special treatment.  If I need a little number to pick up my order, fine, tell me that.  If I don't need a little number how about giving me my fucking stuff and I'll get out of your hair? 

She came over and told the kid to give me the order and make a notation on the paperwork that I hadn't gotten them fitted.

I wasn't trying to cut in line.

"Sir, that's not the point.  But you're all taken care of haveaniceday."

I mean what the fuck is going on right now?

Bump and Grind

Grind:  To move with much difficulty or friction.

My first couple of years of sobriety was a grind, more or less.  It was an example of constant, sustained effort.  I don't want to suggest that I was miserable and unhappy - although I was that, indeed, from time to time - or that things weren't improving . . . just that my initial reactions to things weren't positive very often.  I overreacted to minor offenses and episodes and I tossed any sense of gratitude under the bus more often than not.

The arc of sobriety is long but it bends toward justice.  Martin Luther Seaweed

"Habit of thought is more important than will."  

Ah, yes, the fallacy of willpower.  It gets me far but it only gets me so far and it didn't get me far enough with alcohol and drugs.

This and That

My goal in interpersonal relationships is to never say anything about a person that I wouldn't say without that person being right in front of me.  That being said I think that all of us need to blow off steam to our sponsors or a few trusted friends.  I get frustrated with people sometimes, fully aware that the problem centers in myself and not in the other person.  Still, we all need to do some harmless, private ranting and raving from time to time.  It cleans the gunk out of the carburetor.

Happy people make me uncomfortable.  Go be happy elsewhere.  Please don't bubble, gush, or  make joyous proclamations around me.  I'm not in the mood.  Content people I'm OK with.  It's possible to be content and sullen at the same time.  This appeals to my dark interior.

I think you're ready to get sober or you aren't.  We have very little success convincing people that it's time to get sober.  

A.A. is great but it isn't necessarily the answer for everyone.  If you don't like the spiritual angle or the "suggestions" or the group-think, cool, go somewhere else, find some other path.  Seriously.  All we want is for people to get sober, not to get sober using our prescribed methods which - objectively - are flawed.  We don't have a rip-roaring success rate.

The Kerfuffle Meeting

Apparently I'm drawing some weird energy towards my little 12 Step meeting.  It probably doesn't have anything to do to me, actually, even though I'm sure it's all . . . about me.

Last week one of the women members asked to speak to me privately.  She complained mightily about the other guy that attends the meeting, suggesting that he behaved in an inappropriate way towards her.   She told him that she was going to share this with the other men at the meeting as a means of protecting herself.  I'm the only other man who attends regularly so she clearly wasn't being too subtle.

I like this person but I'm a little on the fence about her emotional sobriety.  She's somewhat volatile, mildly confrontational about things.  I speak my mind, too, but try to use some diplomacy when I'm discussing anything edgy or controversial.  I want to helpful and I'm not helpful when I'm combative or insensitive.

I had plans to call this guy - whose story I tend to believe, to be honest about it - but hadn't gotten around to it when I heard from this woman's sponsor that he had texted her asking if her sponsee was trying to get him kicked out of the meeting.  I've known him for a few years and never had one thought of him as a sexist, macho dude.  I would have put him in the Safe Guy category.

So I ring him up.  I spoke carefully for a moment because I don't want to discount anything anyone says, especially when I'm only getting one side of a story that involves two people.  Or I'm hearing about a situation anecdotally from a third party.  I'm not going to toss anyone under any bus

Boy, that did not work out well for me at all.  He was having none of it, none of anything.  He became quite angry.  He interrupted, he disagreed, he confronted.  I did not diffuse the situation when I explained that I was calling to offer my support, to stress that I make my own determinations of people all by myself and not as a result of what someone else says or doesn't say.  No dice.  "There is no side here," he kept saying.  I never did get to point out that when one person says one thing and another person says something else that is the polar opposite that there certainly is a side.

I am rarely at a loss for words.  All of my public speaking, sometimes in oppositional sales situations, has made me pretty and calm and deliberate, even in volatile situations.  This dude came at me, and forcefully.  I could have defended myself but the idea of the call wasn't to make things fucking worse it was to make them better , to diffuse a situation before it spiraled out of control.

I'm aware that when I stick my nose into someone else's business, unbidden, that I risk bloodletting.  So be it.  I don't do this randomly and without forethought so I'm not going to stop doing it.  I can handle the occasional bloody nose.

My motives?  Good.  The results?  Sheesh.

What I Got

From: "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari . . . 

"We moderns have an arsenal of tranquilizers and painkillers at our disposal, but our expectations of ease and pleasure, and our intolerance of inconvenience and discomfort, have increased to such an extent that we may well suffer from pain more than our ancestors ever did."

I need to remember this the next time I think that things used to be better than they are now.  Things are fine right now.  Things were different before, that's all.  This here today is what I've got.  What I don't got is what I used to have.

They say that money don't buy everything, 
But what it can't buy I don't need, 
I need . . . money,
That's what I need.

I Promise You This . . .

"We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness."

Freedom: The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

So I've always liked the idea of wearing the world like a loose garment.  This is an image that makes sense to me - being engaged with life but not trying to control it.  Floating down the creek.  Paddling, sure, but following the course of the stream.  I was always turning the canoe around and trying to shoot the rapids in reverse.  Shooting the rapids while heading downstream isn't always the best idea but I was the guy trying to will my canoe over large rocks and waterfalls while paddling furiously in the wrong direction.  Now I try to see where the river is going.  I'm present but only moderately in charge.

This is my freedom.

Happy:  Having a feeling arising from a consciousness of well-being or of enjoyment;  enjoying good of any kind, such as comfort, peace, or tranquility.

I used to put a lot of pressure on myself to be happy.  In my mind's eye being happy meant having fun.  Sometimes it meant not experiencing pain.  In never crossed my mind that happiness was a peaceful feeling of well-being.  I was looking for exciting happy, not tranquil happy.  I wanted to be the dude having a fucking great time, not the dude sitting quietly, contentedly.

Content:  Satisfied.

Satisfied.  Not euphoric.  Satisfied.  I know, I know, it sounds boring but it works surprisingly well.

Tradition 10

"A.A. has no opinion on outside issues, hence the A.A. name should never be drawn into public controversy."

We were chatting away at our small 12&12 meeting last week about the opening few paragraphs of Step 12.  There was a guy there for the first time at our meeting who intimated that he had some sobriety under his belt.  Normally dressed, calm in demeanor, no red flags flying.  He did screw around with his cell phone during the introductory readings.  This pisses me off - it's disrespectful: "Sorry, I have to check my Facebook feed right now."  Then, when we started to read, he questioned whether there was a procedure in place to reread Step One if a newcomer was present.  No, we told him - it's too disruptive to keep starting over each time a new person shows up.

After a couple of good shares he introduced himself and started to speak.  He has lived overseas for a long time, recently returning to the U.S., and took his allotted time to go on a long rant about the U.S. health care system.  We sat there uncomfortably for a little while until one of our male attendees said, quite quietly: "Outside issue."  The dude pauses, stands up, and absolutely slams the hardcover book on the table and storms out of the room, showering us with shouts and curses.  The book bounces off the table and onto the floor.

I'll tell you that sometimes things happen so fast that you don't move a muscle.  I idly wonder  how I would react in a dramatic, unexpected event.  I imagine myself coolly doing the right thing.  Pfffftttt.  I didn't move an inch.

The guy stood outside and yelled for a few seconds before taking off.  The group sat in stunned silence before getting into an interesting discussion about how we should have handled the situation.  Many of us thought that our brother did the right thing interrupting someone who was clearly breaking a Tradition - trampling all over it - but I was surprised to hear that some of the members thought that we should have let him finish his thoughts, that he was eventually going to get to the point of his discomfort, that he obviously needed a meeting.  Right after he left one of the women got up and went to find him.  I thought this was a terrible idea.  "Be careful," SuperK said.

I followed up with a few people the next day and was again surprised to hear that the opinions went both ways.  This confirms my solid belief that I don't know what the hell is going on most of the time.  This is why I always check with lots of people.  Just because I think it doesn't mean that it's true.

I hope he isn't there tomorrow.  I don't need to feel threatened at a meeting.  Dude scared me so I can only imagine how some of the women felt.