Advise and Consent

 I took two calls yesterday from old friends in The Program who have many years of sobriety.  Both of them wanted my advice.

Advice:  An opinion offered in an effort to be helpful.

I like that the definition uses the word "opinion" instead of "fact."  I like that the word "effort" is included.  My definition would be more along the lines of "Facts delivered which, if enacted, would be helpful."  One of my favorite suggestions when people ask for my advice - distressingly rare, to be sure - is to urge these idiots to talk to a lot of other people, too.  I'm not being falsely modest when I say this.  I know that my advice is wise and sage and spot-on sometimes.  I also know that it's way off the mark sometimes, too.  Consensus building is the rule of the day.  Even if my wise, sage, spot-on advice would work for me that doesn't necessarily mean it would work for you.  I often conclude my advice dispensing by reminding whatever idiot I'm talking to with a jolly: "But what do I know?  I'm lucky if I can find my car keys half the time."

The first guy didn't have much of a problem.  Really, the bulk of the conversation centered around the fact that he was a little frustrated at being cooped up with his family for too long a time.  My advice in these situations is: "Ah, no shit?"  My good advice is to remind everyone that very few things outside of death are forever.  We'll be through this eventually.  Enjoy the novel stuff and evolve to accept the irritating stuff.  I miss seeing my friends at my paused in-person meetings. I'm also totally digging seeing very old friends in a city that was my home AA base for 20 years.  I can live in the frustration or I can find a solution.

The second guy is dealing with a family member who won't let him off the hook for a past wrong.  My friend has made a formal apology in his 9th Step amends process.  He has also tried to change his behavior so that he doesn't keep making the same mistakes.  No luck so far.  I wondered aloud if the family member is just needling him.  That doesn't seem to be the case.  The guy seems to still be airing his grievances.

I get somewhat protective of my friends.  I told him that "As God's people we stand on our feet; we don't crawl before anyone."  I am happy to take shit from other people much of the time.  I do not let it go on forever.

The next day I got up and wondered about the flip side of the coin: that we have a tremendous Program and tremendous friends to bounce our grievances off of so maybe he should just suck it up and play hurt.  He doesn't live with the guy so maybe he ignores him from time to time.  "We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick." Not were spiritually sick - perhaps were spiritually sick.  "  Or this: "Let's remember that alcoholics are not the only ones bedeviled by sick emotions."  How about that gem?

So clearly I don't know what the fuck he should do.  He's a smart guy working a good Program so he'll figure it out.

"Ask Him each day in your morning meditation what you can do for the man who is still sick."

The Big Finish

 After the Zoom meeting this morning my friend Suburban Bill stayed around for twenty minutes or so and talked with SuperK and me, mostly about her two brothers who have been recently diagnosed with incurable cancers.  I kept quiet because I thought it was great that SuperK could get a different viewpoint on what was going on from a disinterested third party.  Not that she doesn't value my support and counsel but I bring my own biases and history to the discussion and it's always helpful to seek advice from lots of different people, especially on topics that are new to us.

I include a lot of friends in my morning Quiet Time when I cycle through my Gratitude List.  Suburban and I are people who approach life in a similar way -  we aren't especially social but we're both especially charming, caring about others intensely and deeply, but in short bursts.  I'm not sure we give ourselves enough credit for this character trait but we sure enjoy tearing each other up over our weaknesses, something we do it in good humor and with no doubt that the shit being heaped is done with the greatest affection.  He talks about how much he cares about the people in the churches he calls on, so much so that he doesn't take advantage - monetary advantage - when they allow him to just fill out order sheets with whatever he suggests.

"Man, I could make more money if I padded those orders," he told me once.

Not worth it.  Not worth the nagging sense of shame that a little more money would bring him.  He talked about a story in the Bible where Jeebus, facing an agonizing crucifixion and then death, tried to weasel his way out of the tribulations before defaulting to the famous AA addendum: "If it be thy will."  That helped my wife deal with the fact that she's trying to weasel a better outcome for her brothers.

"I think that's pretty natural," quoth Bill.

"Service, gladly rendered obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God's scheme of things - these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes."  12&12 P 124.

No Regrets, Here

Two of my brother-in-laws have been diagnosed with cancer in the space of two months.  While SuperK has a distant relationship with the oldest brother she is quite close with the other who is much closer in age to her.  She's doing a great job in processing through this but it's going to be a process.  For me what this death and dying stuff always does is make me reflect on life in general: who I am, how I got here, where am I going, will there be a college football season this year, and the like.  The death of my parents sure fired this off and the fact that my body is in the early stages of balkiness is keeping it rolling.

I was musing on the fact that here I sit in Southern California after a life in the Midwest and on the East coast.  To my enduring surprise I fit in very well here, enjoying my presence immensely, while remaining at my core a West coast immigrant.  No one ever asks if I'm a native, saying instead "So where are you from originally?" When I was in high school I choose to go to a school in the east as did every single person in my class.  Nobody picked the west.  My core personality has been shaped by my Ohio upbringing and Philadelphia schooling and I'll always be that kind of guy: cynical, spare in my words and actions, striving to achieve.  Yet here I am and glad to be here and certain as certain can be that I'll never leave.  After mom and dad died so did my trips back home and, yes, Ohio will always be "home."

These deaths and illnesses bring up some "What If?" thoughts.  What if I had gone to college out here? Would I have stayed or would I have always felt out of place - as out of place as I do now, and that's saying a lot for a state where so many people are from somewhere else.  And when I say "out of place" I don't mean unwelcome - I mean an immigrant, a dude from somewhere else.  It seems so self-evident to me that I would have fallen in love and never left yet I visited several times in my early years - both for pleasure and for work - and felt so out of place that I decided I didn't like the vibe.

In my morning Quiet Time I always go over a Gratitude List so that I never, ever forget how blessed I am.  A big category is Friends.  And when I look at the people locally that I count as my biggest, closest friends they're mostly from somewhere else.  Is this because I'm drawn to the familiar or is it because I'm that kind of person and that ain't never gonna change?

In a way this makes a kind of sense, my insertion into my new home.  California is a lot more nuanced than it may seem on the surface what with the pictures of beaches and movie stars and Yosemite.  I always thought of a grinder as a banker in NYC or a lawyer in Chicago but I see people in the entertainment business with just as much fire and just as much of a work ethic.  Trust me: you don't get to be a rock star by tossing TVs out of hotel windows and sleeping with sexy groupies.  You practice all the time and play to empty bars for tip money.  I get to go to live theater here and the brilliance of the acting leaves me with my jaw ajar.  These actors are not just moving around and intoning lines of dialogue.  They're inhabiting a character.

Still . . . as an alcoholic I'm a bit of a sybarite.  I like pleasure.  I like to feel good.  This is a state with perfect weather and an unbelievable variety of food and natural beauty galore and an airport that will jet me direct to almost anywhere in the world for a reasonable price.  Gone are the days of strapping on work boots and driving through sleet for four hours to stomp around some filthy manufacturing plant.  It's a lot easier to walk outside into perfect weather, mountains peeking over the horizon to my left, the smell of the ocean a short ten minute drive away.

No regrets here, just reflections.  I did the best I could with the tools I had at the time so here I sit: relatively happy, somewhat content, monstrously blessed.

The Big Book

I've been attending a lot of literature meetings lately.  I prefer meetings where we read out of our books.  I believe that the solutions to my alcoholism is found in these books.  General discussion meetings where a topic is chosen are often good but they are somewhat more likely than literature meetings to drift into grievance sessions or a cataloging of problems.  Bitching, in other words.  We all have problems.  It's okay to talk about the things that are bothering us as long as we move forward into possible solutions for those problems.  Not that I don't enjoy bitching . . . 

All of the following quotes come from The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, copied ver batim.

"Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us." 

Purpose:  The reason for which something is done, or the reason it is done in a particular way.

I do not see anything about me in there.

Here is a burst from the chapter "More About Alcoholism."

"We know that no alcoholic ever recovers control.  Over any considerable period we get worse, never better."

I see never and ever in there.   I see no sometimes-es or occasionally-es, and definitely no maybes.  A reminder that I've got this thing and I better remember I got this thing because the results if I forget about the nature of this thing are always going to be the same.

Don't believe us?

"Step over to the nearest barroom and try some controlled drinking.  Try to drink and stop abruptly.  Try it more than once.  If anyone questions whether he has entered this dangerous area, let him try leaving liquor alone for one year."

One year?!  I remember going to comedy club once in the day.  The club was packed and the rows were pretty close together, both of which made it hard for the waitresses to serve the patrons.  The fact that I clearly appeared to be a non-tipper (totally justified) didn't help, either.  I recall drinking a beer and then waiting a frustratingly long period of time to get my second one ordered and delivered.  By this point I could see that I wasn't ever going to get enough beer to put a buzz on so I sat sullenly through the set until I could get the fuck out of there and go somewhere where I could drink freely.  I was an unhappy and sober alcoholic.  I figured if I couldn't drink as much as I wanted to then I wasn't going to drink at all.  Half a buzz was worse than no buzz at all.

What normal person thinks like that?

"He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic (referring to an alcoholic who decided that dropping a shot of whiskey into a glass of milk - which sounds like the most disgusting thing I've ever heard of and I drank a lot of disgusting shit - wouldn't lead him down that dark familiar road.)  Yet all reasons for not drinking were easily pushed aside in favor of the foolish idea that he take whiskey if he only mixed it with milk!

I've mentioned a few times the experience very recently (as I approach 33 years of continuous sobriety) of seeing a character in a movie vape marijuana and experiencing a momentary flash of curiosity.  It looked so efficient!  Much less wasteful that fumbling with a joint.  And let's not even get into the fact that I can drive around the block to a marijuana dispensary and buy whatever I want legally.  Still stops me in my tracks.

". . . absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.  The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink.  Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other person can provide such a defense."

Yeah, yeah, you're really smart.  We get it.  You don't got it, though, smart guy.  Read all the books you want.  Study away.  Pack your massive brain with encyclopedias of information.  Alcohol is smarter than you are.  Of this we're sure.

"The sensation is so elusive (speaking here about the ease and relaxation that comes from taking a drink) that, while they admit that it is injurious, they cannot over time differentiate the true from the false."

"The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed."

Perspective, Man

I'm actually pretty happy with my reaction to my back troubles.  I do OK with emotional and mental discomfort.  I'm competent when it comes to letting the troubles of the world wash over me, roll off my back, but physical pain has always been a bugaboo and this from a guy who has been blessed with incredible physical health.  I take care of myself - I eat right and exercise and get enough rest/sleep - but some of this has to be chalked up to good genes and the luck of the draw and a blessing from my higher power.  Never been in the hospital in sobriety, don't take any medication, not managing any debilitating conditions or diseases. 

Think I'm grateful about all of this?  Meh.  Sometimes.  Intermittently.  Comes and goes.  Mostly goes.  Mostly goes to a distant land and assumes a fake identity so I can't fucking find it unless I hire a whole team of private detectives.  Gratitude doesn't come easily to me.  I have to check off all of my blessings mentally every morning and I'm often surprised at how robust the list is.  And I have to tweak it so that I'm actively grateful for all of the stuff.  A friend texted me a Gratitude List the other day which was full of du jour gifts not just the big ones that are usually present.

I have always loved the flip side of our AA coin: To Thine Own Self Be True.  Interestingly enough the first recorded instance of this phrase can befound in Shakespeare's play "Hamlet."  Bill and Bob plagiarizing again.  I'm never going to be a Happy Go Lucky kind of guy.  I'm a serious dude with a serious temperament.  Water doesn't roll off my back like rain on a duck - it sticks there with Super Glue-like intensity.  It's welded on there, man.

Perspective:  To think about a situation or a problem in a wise and reasonable way; to compare something to other things so that it can be accurately and fairly judged.

I'm really, really trying to take the Long View, to see the Big Picture.  I enjoy the image of my spirit floating up above my body and watch Little Stevie navigate the world.  It allows me to see how insignificant I really am and how little control I have over the affairs of the world.  

Perspective, man.

Touchstone Bill

I've got a little lower back thing going on right now.  To reiterate a common theme in my life: I DO NOT like pain.  I don't see the point of my having to feel any mental, emotional, or physical discomfort.  I believe that I should be permitted to sail blithely through life pain-free.

Touchstone: A stone used to check the quality of gold alloys by rubbing them to leave a visible trace; a standard of comparison or evaluation. 

So . . . hmmm . . . that's a tough definition.  I guess that the point is to . . . hmmm . . . I don't know what the point is.  I think Bill misused the word touchstone.  I would have said pain is the price we must pay to progress spiritually.  Maybe I should send that suggestion in to our Central Office in NY to see if they want to rewrite the fucking 12&12 to my specifications.  I'm sure they'll do it.

"Someone who knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain was the touchstone of all spiritual progress."  12&12 P 93.

That would not have been me.  I would rather have a million dollars be my touchstone of all personal spiritual progress.  I promise that I'll be a good boy if you give me a million dollars.

"But if a willing start is made, then the great advantages of doing this will so quickly reveal themselves that the pain will be lessened as one obstacle after another melts away."  12&12 P 93.

OK, you better toss a Promise my way if you're going to insist that pain in my life is inevitable.

One of the ways the internet has made life easier for all of us is that whenever we have an ache or pain we can jump online and find out what horrible, incurable disease we've picked up.  Once we're sufficiently agitated, having dialed Nine - One on our phone, finger poised to hit that last One, eager to have an ambulance rush us to the hospital where a team of medical specialists can try to bring us back from the precipice, we've learned to go back and re-read the diagnosis, re-evaluate the symptoms.  We find that all is not lost.  We find we've overreacted.

I know with an injury or illness I teeter wildly between ignoring the symptoms and just powering through my day without changing my routine at all or I curl up into the fetal position, sucking my thumb, quivering with fear, certain that my situation falls into the Never-Always-Forever category.  If you break your leg don't go out for your daily run and if you have a slight twinge in your knee you're probably going to be just fine.

We talked this morning in our meeting about the Slow and Steady.  Do what's in front of you and trust in the outcome.  God's got this.  God's got a plan.  God isn't asking for suggestions.

Our Forerunners

The Six Steps of the Oxford Group

1.  A complete deflation.
2.  Dependence on God.
3.  A moral inventory.
4.  Confession.
5.  Restitution.
6.  Continued work with others in need.

These are the six precepts that guided the Oxford Group - a very religious group that many believe was instrumental to Bill W as he fleshed out our Program.  You have got to love Bill, though - six weren't good enough so he doubled down and made it an even dozen.

That is an informal AA slogan, after all - if one is good then a hundred is better.

Steps one, two, and three seem to be well represented but are compacted into two Oxford steps.  Steps four and five are identical: a moral inventory and confession.   Steps six and seven are completely blown off.  Eight and nine may sneak in under the guise of Restitution?  Steps ten and eleven vanish into the gloaming but step twelve is as advertised.

So our founders add some additional instructions about developing a relationship with a higher power in our first three steps and they expound on this in steps six and seven, finally concluding with more extensive information on a daily inventory and a spiritual prayer and meditation practice.

So  . . .  a little more instruction on developing a relationship with a god of our choosing . . .  a LOT more instruction, actually . . . and then a suggestion that we do a little more in the daily inventory department . . . a LOT more, actually . . . before concluding with a reminder that we need to be of service to others.  I do like the fact that in AA our twelfth step reminds us that we can best be of service when we remember that our spiritual awakening makes this service possible AND that we need to continue to strive to leave our inner assholes in the past by practicing these spiritual principles.

We had to come from somewhere.