Seaweed: Grinder

Sometimes you just have to grind it out.  Sweat and grit.  This is a term used for football players: "He's a grinder."  It can be a good quality and it can be a bad quality.  I'm trying to quit coffee at the moment and it's hard.  I don't drink it because I need to wake up - I drink it because it gives me a charge, a buzz, I feel different after I drink it and for me different is the attraction.  I've needed to quit for the longest time.  I make plans and then I fuck around with the system to try to get around the fact that I need to quit - I mix in decaf or I try black tea or I wait until later in the day before I have my first cup.  Some of these provide a temporary solution but the Creep inevitably returns.  Part of the reason is when I greatly reduce my consumption of a psychoactive substance my tolerance goes down so the next time I use it an outsized reaction occurs, which I like, and the substance begins drawing me further down the rabbit hole.

There was a woman on the Zoom meeting today who was having trouble with her internet connection.  It was pretty trippy.  Her voice would slow way down, get real deep and low, as her computer buffered, and then the lagging audio would squirt out in a high, fast Chipmunk voice.  It was cool.  Very psychedelic.

"For we can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic."  Step 10, P. 91.  

Whew.  The word "automatic" indicates that we have to do a lot of failing and a lot of practice until this happens.

Good phrase: I have lots of excuses and no reasons.

I'm not going to be comfortable in this life until I develop the willingness to admit when I'm wrong AND to forgive when the fault lies with another. 

Whew.  My friends were killing me with wisdom this morning.

God Talk

"We only fail when we trust too much on our own strength.  Do not feel bad about your weakness.  When you are weak, that is when God is strong to help you.  Trust God enough, and your weakness will not matter.  God is always strong to save."

In thinking of God, doubts and fears leave us.  Instead of those doubts and fears, there will flow into our hearts such faith and love as is beyond the power of material things to give, and such peace as the world can neither give or take away.  And with God, we can have the tolerance to live and let live."

I realize this is all fodder for those who think A.A. is too religious.  Too much God-Talk.  I get it.  But for those of us who have come to rely on a Higher Power there is much comfort to be found in the idea that our weakness can draw the greatest strength out of that Power, that an awareness of his presence can banish all of the negative thoughts and fears that stalk our serenity. 

"There is such a thing as being too loyal to any one group.  Do I feel put out when another group starts and some members of my group leave it and branch out into new territory?  Or do I send them out with my blessing?  Do I visit that new offshoot group and help it along?  Or do I sulk in my own tent?  A.A. grows by the starting of new groups all the time.  I must realize that it's a good thing for a large group to split up into smaller ones, even if it means that the large group - my own group - becomes smaller."

And I realize that this reminder will serve as fodder for anyone who thinks I've bitched too much about the trials and tribulations of the Keep It Complicated group sundering.  It's always good for me to remember that the more different groups we have the better chance we have of connecting with new people.  We don't want to have one big group.  We want to have thousands of them, spread all over, meeting at different times and places.

Nobody is Thinking About You!

From the Big Book: "As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.  We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day 'Thy will be done.' "

From the 12&12:  " Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen."

When I keep my mouth shut I have a lot of trouble putting my foot in there.  I can't remember the last time I got into hot water for not talking.  I can remember thousands of times I got into trouble after I did some talking.  I've gotten in trouble three or four times already today and it's 8 in the morning.

Stress:  Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.

There you have it.  I'm merely an animal.  A big, fancy animal but an animal nonetheless.  Sex, food and water, status in my community - shit, gerbils have those characteristics.

Feelings aren't facts. This dovetails nicely with the idea that No One Is Thinking About You.  The leader shared an anecdote today where he felt he was treated rudely by a fellow A.A.  It was quite an amusing story - he had clearly blown something minor into something major.  He was still steamed about it two days later.  It was pointed out that the person who had given offense had not thought of him once in that two days.  Nobody is thinking about you!  They're not doing anything to you!  They're thinking about themselves.

I had a much beloved T-shirt once that said "Whatever . . . ."  I should have paid more attention to that T-shirt.  The writing should have been backwards so every time I looked in a mirror it clearly told me what to do.

When I was working I had a home office.  Every now and then I'd get frosted about something at which point I'd type a cleverly worded, justifiably outraged email to someone.  I'd walk next door and get SuperK so she could put her stamp of approval on it. We're a team, after all.  This was inevitably her response: "You're not saying that . . . or that.  You can say half of that.  And you're taking that out.  You can keep these two lines (the greeting and my signature)."  It was all very deflating.  It also keep me out of a lot of scalding hot water.

Seaweed Sucks!

 I was sitting by the pool yesterday when a woman from the community that I'm friends with responded to my greeting by saying that she was pretty upset.  I inquired as to the cause - she said that one of the women in the tight circle she's part of refuses to get vaccinated and this is alienating her from all the other women in this clique who are all in their 70s and 80s and worried that she's potentially exposing them to the virus.   She added she was healthy and wasn't going to do it.  The consequences for her is that she is slowly being iced out of the group, the icing being accelerated by her refusal to wear a mask when the group activities are inside (contravening both a county mask mandate and one that our community has put in place - it is a 55+ community after all).  My friend knows I have a science background so she asked: "What can I say to her?  What advice do you have?"

I could just look at her for a couple of beats and say: "Not really.  I don't think you can say anything to her.  I could explain the science but she wouldn't listen to a word of it.  Her mind is made up."

It's very frustrating.  I try not to think of people who behave in ways that I don't agree as idiots but it's getting harder and harder.  And then - because our Fellowship stresses rigorous self-examination - it brought to mind what people who tried to get me to stop drinking and using during my run must have thought when I offered my flimsy and irrational excuses.

There was an incident at college one year where a large group was in the Quad of the complex where I lived, milling about on a Saturday night, cheerfully drunk and high, after live music ended.  Someone grabbed a mike, hooked it up to a stereo, and blasted the famous Network line: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"  The crowd got worked-up in a very good natured way and decided to go to one of the other dorm complexes called Hill House.  We poured out of the Quad and made our way down the streets shouting: "Hill House sucks!  Hill House sucks!"  Again, it was all very light-hearted as we stormed into the lobby of Hill House and continued to chant.  Security was there and didn't let us past reception but it never occured to me that this could get out of hand, if only by accident.  This is one of the few times (maybe the only time) in my life where I got swept up into that kind of group mentality.  I wondered what I would have done if the group had tried to force their way past security and into the building?  It never crossed my mind that a fight could have started or an edgy security guard could have felt threatened and started whaling on kids with a nightstick.  

This is sort of how I see people who get caught up in the whirlwind of group thinking.  A lot of these people are smart enough to see the bullshit but they're too busy shouting: "Something sucks!  Something sucks!"  What is it anyway?  Willful ignorance?  Intellectual incuriosity?  Feeling alienated and being accepted into a clique?  What was I doing in the college crowd, behaving in a way that was foreign to me?

Seaweed sucks!  Seaweed sucks!

Ceased Fighting

"And we have ceased fighting anyone or anything - even alcohol.  For by this time sanity will have returned.  It is easy to let up on our spiritual program and rest on our laurels.  We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.  We are not cured of alcoholism.  What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition."

I've always liked this section of the Big Book.  Sometimes these few paragraphs that we read after finishing our discussion of Step Nine are termed the Tenth Step Promises.  It's explained to us that alcohol has lost most of its power over us.  We don't avoid it and we aren't drawn to it.  We are placed in a position of neutrality.  

I spent most of my first two years of sobriety hyper-aware of alcohol.  I knew who was drinking it and how much they had consumed.  I couldn't go to bars to listen to music or to rock concerts and even sporting events were painful at times.  These were all excuses to drink.  I went to the baseball stadium to get drunk.  The fact that there was a diverting game simultaneously happening was so much background hiss.  If they didn't serve beer I would have stayed home and watched it on TV.

Fit: Suitable; proper; in good shape; physically well.

"This is how we react as long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."

Tolerance:  An acceptance of or patience with the beliefs, opinions, or practices of others.

"Love and tolerance of others is our code."

Show Time

"There is always a temptation to speak beyond your own experience, in order to make a good impression.  This is never effective.  What does not come from the heart does not reach the heart.  What comes from personal experience and a sincere desire to help the other person reaches the heart."

I love the feeling of giving a good speech at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  You know what I'm talking about - people are nodding or laughing and I'm thinking: "Awwwwwright - Show Time!"  This is why I spend half of the meeting preparing my remarks.  I want to sound good and wise and insightful.  I don't care what you're sharing - I care about the impression I'm making.  This is bad enough but what makes it worse is that I got a schtick for most topics.  I got a little speech I can recite that sounds good but may not be what I'm currently feeling.  I love pitch meetings or those where the leader calls on people.  I can listen better when I'm not sure I'm going to get to talk.

I went to a jail meeting when I lived in Cincinnati.  This was a bad jail, a big time prison for men who had committed violent felonies and where going to be locked up for a long, long time.  I was scared shitless the first few times I went and scared almost shitless every other time so to compensate I tried to act like a bad-ass.  For the record - I am the least bad-ass person you'll ever meet.  My wife - who weighs like 100 pounds - can beat me up so I'm sure I fooled precisely no one who was incarcerated.  The lesson I learned was to be authentic.  It's not hard to get a feel for who I am.  I'm pretty transparent.

My part.  My part.  What is my part?  Your part is none of my business.  But I don't want to look at my part!  Your part is more delicious to dissect.

Isolate: To set apart or cut off from others.

Solitude:  The state of being by oneself.

Solitude versus isolation.  One is okay and one is not.  You can figure it out on your own.

Living sober means being uncomfortable sometimes.  Or: The good thing about being sober is that you get to feel things again but the bad thing about being sober is you have to feel things again.

I have a good complicator.

Regret nothing.

A.A. is a little play world where we can practice being adults.  I did not know what I was doing when I got sober so I practiced on some patient A.A.s.

Our Sole Purpose :)

I really like this idea that suffering makes us human.  Going through difficulties and transcending them, either by taking the action to change the situation or learning to accept the circumstances as they are, to the best of our ability, fits us to be of service to other people.  My first sponsor in Indianapolis - a kind, generous, spiritual man who helped me immensely - drove a big, white Cadillac.  I found myself discounting his advice on the sole basis of this car.  This was unreasonable but understandable - I couldn't always see how he could identify with my much more ordinary life.  I had other ne'er-do-wells to commiserate with and leaned on him as a man who had worked through The Steps and could give me advice on the best way to do that.  He wasn't my Go To guy when it came to thriving while enduring the trials and travails of a more hard-scrabble existence.

We all remember that sense of belonging that came when talking to someone who had lived through similar life circumstances.  Sometimes my sponsor seemed to be passing along book knowledge and not lived knowledge.  I find I need both.  When I'm talking with an A.A., sharing my problems or listening to theirs, I might suggest different courses of action and I might relate how I behaved in a similar situation and I often refer to specific passages in the books that seem applicable before throwing up my hands, metaphorically, and saying: "Wow, you're taking a lot of good action - you're really going to be able to help someone some day."

I say again: Your sole purpose in life may be to serve as a warning for others.