Lying, Reality, Facts, Honesty

Lie:  To give false information intentionally with intent to deceive. 

Truth and honesty are no friends of the alcoholic. These are commodities which the rest of the world finds valuable, but which the alcoholic finds an embarrassment. Very often an alcoholic will automatically tell a lie rather than the truth, since in doing so he is actually able to control reality a little better, and he does not have to remember those difficult-for-the-unwary details called facts. An obvious difficulty for the alcoholic is that memory is impaired, particularly during periods of alcoholic amnesia. Trying to remember what lies have been told to which people, placed on top of alcoholic amnesia, leaves a sense of chaotic control which is nothing less than a foretaste of hell itself. 

Remember how exhausting it was to lie and lie and lie and then have to come up with a backup lie to cover the first lie in case you got caught and you found yourself way down this rabbit-hole of branching lies which went every which way but sometimes intersected, layers and layers and levels of lies . . . Jeebus, it was exhausting to remember what you told to whom. I found myself confused as to what actually happened from time to time, compounded by the fact that I was in a black-out or a brown-out and wasn't clear of the facts if I even had an inclination to tell them. I found myself in A.A. relating a story from time to time and thinking: "I'm not sure that actually happened." I had lied about it for so long that it was so deep in my consciousness that I didn't know what was what.

I don't know about the ". . . nothing less than a foretaste of hell itself." I think our priestly friend got a bit dramatic with that one.

Honest: Scrupulous with regard to telling the truth. (Ed. Note: Scrupulous! I love it. Exactly and carefully conducted. Beautiful.)

Even in early sobriety, recovering alcoholics may find that they still have the tendency to tell a lie rather than the truth, simply because it has always been easier to do so. To tell a lie is to create one's own reality—the greatest accomplishment of the alcoholic.

My non-lying self took a while to develop. Ahem . . . is still developing. I quickly understood that malicious lies were not spiritual - I had to quit lying to hurt people or to slyly carry tales. Then I migrated to the lie of omission - as a clever, practiced spinner of lies I found I could often carefully construct my words so that I could get the person to whom I was speaking to believe something that wasn't true even though my words were technically true. I was proud of this loophole until I looked the word "lie" up and found that a lie was anything that caused someone to believe a falsehood. My clever fucking around with the dialogue didn't absolve me of anything.

Today I practice rigorous honesty, to the best of my ability. I tend to exaggerate and fluff and gloss over and round up to make myself look better. If the number is 10 I make it 11. That extra 1 doesn't help me at all. I don't know why I do it but I do it. But I'm proud to say that you can absolutely trust whatever I have to say.

Reality: A real entity, event, or other fact.

Fact: Something actual as opposed to invented; something that is real.

 

To tell the truth means accepting real reality. Alcoholics hate to do that. An alcoholic will change and adapt all facts, figures, dates, promises, and vows, since everything about him has to serve the single purpose of the alcoholic - to keep his relationship with alcohol secure. Obviously, his situation sometimes involves some compromise, particularly when he is actively threatened by people in authority. However, it is not likely that he will put aside his main goal for long.

Facts . . . Schmacts. Don't get in the way of my alcohol or drugs.

Tortured by Loneliness

Isolation: The state of being away from other people.

My friend Willie send me a few pages from a book called "Transforming the Steps" written by an orthodox Catholic priest. I'm not sure if he found the thinking helpful personally or he's so appalled by the state of my Program that he's doing whatever he can to get me back on the beam. Whatever. Both work for me. I can use all the help I can get. The important thing is that I mention his name. Dude would kill me if I used something from him without due credit.

I include a few excerpts here. I've found it fascinating over the years seeing how learned people from religion, from the medical community, from the legal system and psychiatry and from just about everyone who has to deal with active alcoholism and drug addiction, frankly, have adapted and absorbed the stuff that Bill and Bob wrote down, stuff that was mostly appropriated from spiritual literature of all types and colors written over thousands of years, stuff that was knitted and synthesized into a easily digestible paste that alcoholics could swallow. I mean: find God and help your neighbor? C'mon. Bill and Bob didn't come up with that.

"The feeling of total isolation experienced by the alcoholic, though not necessarily recognized by him, includes areas where normal people would not even think it possible to be isolated. For regular people, being conscious may not always be a wonderful experience, but at least it can be relied on. For the drinking alcoholic, becoming unconscious starts to be a welcome alternative to the pains of living. However, in the course of time, the unconscious mind of the drinker also becomes tainted with the pain and insanity of the conscious world. Closing his eyes no longer keeps the pain away, and there seems to be no way of keeping the insanity out."

Contrast this with an excerpt from the Big Book: "For one thing, we will get rid of that terrible sense of isolation that we've always had. Almost without exception, alcoholics are tortured by loneliness. Even before our drinking got bad and people began to cut us off, nearly all of us suffered that we didn't quite belong. . . . . There was always that mysterious barrier we could neither surmount or understand."

I believe that Earth People think that alcoholics drink because they want to have fun. Maybe it's like that at the start but eventually it becomes a job, a requirement necessary to stop feeling the pain of being alive. The desire for unconsciousness becomes overriding. That's why I didn't go out and I didn't put any food in my belly that would hinder my metabolism of the alcohol. I wanted to go to sleep. Many of us felt that we were placed on earth without the basic instruction manual that everyone else had. We were fucking clueless.

Who would want to give that up?

Big News!

 I have a nagging sense that 2021 is being threatened as in: "I may not get to do what I want to do" threatened.  This is probably a redundant statement.  What else is important to me than what I want to do?  Nothing comes to mind.  But there's a new, more contagious strain of the virus beginning to circulate and the pandemic is raging because people aren't doing what the health authorities recommend.  I think people weigh the consequences and the percentages against the inconvenience in their lives and pretty much do what they want.  I used to do this all the time when I was drinking.  Ten beers and a car?  I've gotten home safely hundreds of times before so I bet I get home safely tonight.  And you know what?  Never had an accident, a ticket, or a DUI so my bet was solid.  I never really bothered to spend much time considering that an accident could have had dire circumstances for myself and - what's much worse - dire consequences for some other totally innocent person.  Bad enough I smash up my car and mess myself up - quite selfish to disregard the possibility that this could have also happened to you.

The big news - Big News! - is that I'm making some progress on my home group resentment.  Slow but steady.  Actually, real fucking slow and so steady as to be imperceptible since it has been ongoing for like two months.  I'm not sprinting toward the finish line, that's for sure.  The linchpin is that I can't shake this sensation that a big part of the resentment is my belief that some people are making a political statement by meeting in person and they're dragging along some weaker, more impressionable members.  Strong personalities can be compelling from time to time.  Sometimes I like having someone cocksure about a matter tell me forcefully and with great confidence what to do (Fair Disclosure: I never like this).  

I don't buy the "new people need live meetings" argument, either.  I'd be comfortable if one of these people held a meeting in one of their large backyards or in a nice park by the ocean - that seems safer to me than meeting in an enclosed space where people aren't wearing PPE.  I suspect the stance is more along the lines of "Nobody gets to tell me what to do" instead of "we're here for the newcomer."  My Zoom meeting has plenty of newcomers.

I think I'm going to drive back and forth down their residential streets at 80MPH in my Very Expensive Car.  Who do they think they are?  Telling me it's against the law and it's dangerous.  Stay inside if you feel threatened.

Hey, that's kind of fun.  

Too Far, Too Much

 I am on a lifelong quest to minimize disturbance in my life.  When I find something disturbing I realize that it's in my best interest to look closely at what is going on.  I can usually see where my prejudices and biases and stubbornness come into play.  I can change if I'm wrong (Ed. Note: I'm never wrong and even if I could be wrong or even could become wrong in the future I'd never admit it because this would suggest that I knew I was wrong, which I wasn't.)  I can learn new things, at least.  I can see situations from a different point of view and sometimes come to a new understanding, see how and why a different way of doing things can be acceptable or all right or - God forbid - even better.  Keeping an open mind.  At the very least I can remind myself how little I actually control in this life.  

That being said all of us have to decide when too far, too much, is too far and too much, and the live A.A. meetings where I know some people who I find generally objectionable on a good day is past one of my own personal lines.  I'm not saying it's a good line but it's my line and I think it's not an unreasonable line and To Thine Own Self Be True.  I've looked at this from all angles and from the inside to the outside and I'm convinced that it's a line that I cannot cross.  If I know the personalities involved I find myself getting disturbed and I don't have to put up with that if I don't want to, and I don't want to.  This isn't my job or my family where a compromise is going to make life easier for everyone.  I can back away and go somewhere else/do something else.

The struggle at the moment is that my sponsor is going to that meeting.  This is distressing.  I wouldn't normally consider him as someone who holds the beliefs of the other attendees but he's still going.  Such a big part of my casual phone conversations with other A.A.s is to check on each other's Program.  How do I do that right now?  I don't see how I do it.  I've tried a few "don't go there" calls with him but I found them strained on my end.  Luckily I have a lot of good friends who work good Programs that I talk with frequently - most of them with a lot more sobriety than him, actually - so it's not like I'm bereft and adrift.

It's just distressing that I see the Outside World sneaking into The Rooms.  I can't shake the sense that the part of the equation is that the people at the live meetings are making a political/social statement.  They insist they aren't and I'm sure that politics isn't a meeting topic but still the sense I get is that they're doing this because they want to exercise their wills.

Look away, look away.

Sometimes Quickly, Sometimes Slowly

Resentment:  Anger or displeasure stemming from belief that one has been wronged or betrayed by others.

Resent: To consider as an affront.

Still holding onto this resentment about the live A.A. meeting that is none of my business and is full of people that by and large I don't like and/or don't respect and don't normally associate with.  You can see why I spend so much time stewing in this sour soup of ire.  Working through it, however.  Staying out of it by staying away from the personalities that I don't really have any contact with anyway.

Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.

Never forget that resentment is a deadly hazard to an alcoholic.

Deadly: Causing death; lethal.

Hazard: The chance of suffering harm.

But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave.

Grave: Serious, in a negative sense.

Resentment is the "number one" offender.

One:  The first number.

The greatest enemies of us alcoholics are resentment, jealousy, envy, frustration and fear.

It is plain that a life that contains deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness.

Anger, resentments, jealousy, envy, self-pity, hurt pride - all lead to the bottle.

Few people have been more victimized by resentment that us alcoholics.

Yeah, why would I want to work through this resentment?  There's nothing in our literature that warns me of the dangers of resentments.  Futility, unhappiness, victimization, all sound good to me.

It mattered little whether our resentments are justified or not.

Justified:  Having a reason, explanation, or excuse which provides convincing, morally acceptable for behavior or for a belief.

Dammit.  This A.A. resentment is justified!  These people - who I don't normally associate with or like anyhow - are breaking the law, ignoring the pleas of our health care workers, and shattering the 7th Tradition.  That's THREE good reasons for my resentment.  THREE, I tell you!  I think that the phrase from the book should read "It mattered little whether our resentments are justified unless the minimum threshold of three is breached.  After that you can let 'er rip.  Three is too much for anyone to endure."

Sometimes quickly - sometimes slowly.  Sometimes real fucking slowly.

That Doggone Book

Theory:  A description of an event or a system that is considered to be accurate.

The spiritual life is not a theory.  We have to live it.

Oh, shut up.  I prefer a carnal life.

Sometimes we hear an alcoholic say that the only thing he needs to do is keep sober.  "Don't see anything the matter here, Ma.  Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowin'?"

Yet another reminder that alcoholism is a spiritual disease and that while stopping drinking is a crucial first step it's at that point that the real work begins.

Apology:  An expression of remorse or regret for having said or done something that harmed another.

I used to be the first to apologize and the last to mean it.  Now I just never apologize.  It would be the admission of a fault or a slight or a bit of bad behavior and we all know I don't do these things.

There may be some wrongs we can never fully right.  We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would right them if we could.  

A good reminder that the amends process usually includes some instances where we can't remedy the destruction caused by some bad behavior.  Sometimes people won't forgive us.  Sometimes we've behaved so badly that a relationship or circumstance is irrevocably damaged.  I got fired several times before sobriety and kicked out of college once, and no one ever urged me to come back when I got sober.

We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping.  As God's people we stand on our feet; we don't crawl before anyone.

I remind people of this all the time if I see them beating the shit out of themselves.  Apologize with honest and heartfelt sincerity once.  Apologize twice if you have to which you will have to.  Maybe one more time if the relationship is especially important or the mistake is particularly egregious.  But then it's enough already.  Unless you're an ax murderer who still has the ax.

Festering

Disturb: To have a negative emotional impact; to cause emotional distress or confusion.

I have been on a lifelong quest to minimize disturbance in my life.  This is not a small feat because I'm easily disturbed.  It's a game of whack-a-mole - as soon as I quash one disturbance another one pops out.  When I find something disturbing I realize that it's in my best interest to look closely at what's actually going on.  I can usually see where my prejudices and biases and stubbornness come into play.  I can change if I'm wrong.  Luckily, I'm rarely wrong.  Plus, when I do change it's not because I'm following some admirable purpose but rather because I'm trying to minimize disturbance in my life.  

I learn new things when I set aside my prejudices and biases and stubbornness.  I can see situations from a different point of view and sometimes come to a new understanding, see how and why a different way of doing things can be acceptable or all right or - God forbid - even better than my way of doing it.  Keeping an open mind.  At the very least - even if my entrenched prejudices and biases and stubbornness refuse to be dislodged - I can remind myself how little I can actually control.

That being said all of us have to decide - in the light of our own personal circumstances and beliefs - when too far and too much is is too far and too much.  This is going to be different for all of us.  What I decide I can't tolerate for ethical or moral or spiritual reasons may be fine for you and vice versa.

Getting to the point . . . The live A.A. break-away meeting has stepped over one of my personal lines in the sand.  It simply has.  I am offended by the disregard for laws and the agony our health care workers are enduring and for the fact that the Seventh Tradition is being ignored.  The problem is exacerbated greatly by the fact that I know a lot of the personalities involved and they're not people that have a general world view that aligns closely with mine.  There are plenty of in-person meetings going on in our local A.A. district and none of them offend me a whit.  I don't know the people so I have no stake in the process.  If you love something then you tend to care a lot more.

Anyway, I find myself getting disturbed - right or wrong, justified or unjustified - and I don't have to put up with the disturbance.  This doesn't affect me on a personal level very much because I don't interact with many of these people regularly.  I'm sure when society opens back up I'll be able to maintain cordial relationships - I'm a pretty laid-back person for a tight-assed, super-competitive, hyperactive, Type A type.  But now?  Naw.  Can't do it.  Don't have to put up with it.  Not.  Gonna.  Do it.