The Shitting of the Pants

 Our early morning meeting has been struggling with a homeless persons influx for a good while.  It bugs me.  I find them disruptive and believe that the reason they're showing up is for coffee and cake and to take a quick bath in the bathroom sink.  I'm empathetic - I feel for their suffering and wish that they had access to or took advantage of the various social agencies that can help them with their nutrition, housing, and mental health issues.  Generally, I'm OK if someone comes in for the coffee and then sits quietly in the back row but these folks are talking to themselves and getting up and down and round and round.  I find it distracting.  I've brought up some solutions (in my mind, anyway) for this challenge which have been summarily rejected in our business meetings by the nicer-than- nice California crowd.

Then one Saturday our main antagonist showed up to the meeting early and lost control of his bowels in the room.  It was quite the scene, man.  He was subsequently banned from attending and in our next business meeting we finally voted to put coffee and cookies on a one month hiatus, a solution that I had been proposing since before dinosaurs walked the earth, to no avail.  

And . . . that was that.  For a few days the homeless would stroll in, usually mid-morning, check out the kitchen, and then stroll right back out.  This lasted a few days and then no more homeless people.  I know I sound a bit heartless but we're an organization designed to help people quit drinking, not one that can solve health, addiction, and housing issues.  I can safely say that most of these folks are too far gone to ever get The Program.  One dude asked me if I heard voices in my head.  It must be hard to listen to what's going on in the meeting when someone else is talking to you at the same time.

In less than a month our attendance is up 50% and we're getting some younger folks to show up.  I was ready to quit drinking when I finally wandered in but if the room had been streaked with shit or I had to wait a guy putting 15 creamers into his coffee in the kitchen I doubt I would have stayed.

Negative Thinking

 Negative:  Pessimistic; not tending to see the bright side of things (often used pejoratively).

The question often comes up about how to get rid of negative thinking.  I often wonder what the question means.  There are, apparently, other types of thinking although I can't imagine what they are.  Positive thinking sounds like a theme for a Tom Hanks rom-com or a Deepak Chopra podcast.  You can stuff your positive thinking in a sack, mister.  Honestly, this is another one of those concepts that alcoholics believe only applies to alcoholics when I bet a grade deal of the world tends to take a negative or pessimistic view of things.  It's how we survive, how we get by.   And then there's the  endless discussion of whether we are born with this tendency or whether it's beaten into us by our parents.  We do favor the latter, preferring to blame our poor parents for everything.  I have a sister who is decidedly not negative so I'm assuming she must have been raised by the wolves living in our back yard and not by our parents who screwed me up so badly.

I believe this is one of those areas where the Fake It 'Till You Make It theory comes into play.  I know I make a run through a personal Gratitude List every morning in my Quiet Time even when I'm not feeling particularly grateful.  I believe that just saying the words has an effect on my overall mood.  I also like to add the request that I be shown how I can be of service to someone else during the course of the day.  I'm not even sure what this means but it has more wiggle room than asking for ways to help someone else.  What I perceive as help is usually not help at all because I'm trying to give someone what I think they should get.

I believe this aura of gratitude and positive thinking requires some time.  I believe an Attitude of Gratitude has to be cultivated over the years.  I don't believe it happens quickly or comes easily.  I spent 28 years wallowing in my pessimism.  That bus doesn't get turned around on a dime.

Where I Belong

 I had pre-decided on Saturday that I was just going to listen and not open my mouth.  I talk too often as it is and rarely have anything coherent to say.  It's amazing that when you don't spend all of your time thinking about what you're going to say and preparing your brilliant remarks you can hear some good stuff.  The topic was Gratitude and people shared anecdotes about how grateful they are that they're no longer doing some of the stupid shit they did when they drank.

One guy used to sneak sips of wine and covered up his tracks by putting red food coloring in a glass of water and topping the bottle off until one time he drunkenly used green food coloring so that at the next meal his wife poured them each a glass of green wine.

Another guy talked about doing some research on the medicine that a veterinarian had prescribed for his dog - his dog, for god's sake - and decided that he could maybe, possible get off if he took it.

It made me think of a friend of mine who was a shipyard supervisor who would periodically use a company car to cruise around the site to check on the progress of various jobs.  A friend flagged him down one morning: "Mike, what are you doing?"  Turns out he had his company-issued polo shirt on inside out and that was the best thing about his appearance.  He also had on a pair of glasses that was missing one of the lenses and apparently the night before - when he was driving around in a black out in a company car - he threw up without bothering to get out of the car, leaving streaks of dried vomit running down the side of the car.

Yeah, we were fooling everybody.

It made me offer a brief observance: "When I was drinking if you had told me that my choices were to get up at 6 AM on a Saturday to drive to a 7 AM meeting where we'd talk about spiritual matters or to take some pills prescribed for a dog I wouldn't have hesitated to make my choice."

This is how I know I'm where I belong.

Gall and Bile and Such

Gall:  Rudeness and the quality of being unable to understand that your behavior or what you say  is not acceptable to other people.

I took a phone call yesterday from a dude I sponsor if by "sponsor" you mean "I talk to him sometimes so he can ignore me and feel better about himself."  I'm kidding - he's a good guy and works hard at getting better.  He wanted to talk about a co-worker that he was thinking of garroting and then burying in a shallow grave.  I listened and he talked a blue streak for the better part of an hour.  I could have put the phone down and taken a nap - he wouldn't have known the difference.  I've learned that most of the time people just want to unburden themselves.  They don't want my advice.  I don't blame them.  My advice usually sucks.  I never suggest that anyone take my advice.  Stop someone on the street and ask their advice.  It'd probably work better.

This is how we help each other.  I know my friend and I know that he wasn't lying to me or making shit up.  He was probably exaggerating to make himself look better but that's SOP.  It made me think about the difference between wisdom and knowledge and how wisdom is a combination of knowledge and experience, often earned in painful ways.  When I'm right and the other person is wrong it's awfully hard for me to try to find the middle ground.  The middle ground is that I'm fucking right and you need to back off.

It also made me think about how we all need to strike a balance between being right and respecting ourselves.  As a recovering alcoholic I don't grovel in the mud before anyone anymore.  I stand tall, on my own two feet.  So with each situation I have to ask myself if this is a case where I need to assert myself and protect my own ego (rare) or do I need to be the bigger person, the man with a Program, the man on a spiritual quest (distressingly fucking common).

This guy took a series of aggressive texts from the asshole who was complaining about a minor matter where my buddy was indeed at fault, and they ruined his entire day.  He demonstrated spiritual growth by not responding in kind.  Good for him but he seethed about the unfairness of the situation.  As an older guy I can't afford to have entire days ruined anymore - I don't have enough days left to have any ruined.  I did not suggest this at the end of our conversation that he might have responded like this: "Hey, man, sorry about that.  I know that when I do this it upsets our boss and both of our days go better when the boss is in a good mood.  Thanks for having my back.  I owe you one."

Can you visualize the gall of the other man to reduce my friend to this state, the choking, poisonous bile he would have had to swallow to write that?  He was right and the other guy was wrong!  This is unfair!!  But would he have ruined an entire day so that he could assert his self-righteous prerogative?  Probably not.  I kept this to myself as the situation seemed still too urgent.  He'll figure it out.

This is how we pass the love back and forth in The Fellowship.  We make each other think.  When we have some pertinent experience, strength, and hope we pass it along.  When we need some ES&H we ask for it and honor the other man with the request.

Not That Important

 I've got a birthday coming up soon.  Birthdays used to be a cause for celebrating (Or: drinking and using, as if I needed a reason/excuse to drink and use).  Or at least a time to procure some more swag that I didn't need.  Now what I mostly do is make a quick calculation as to how much time I have left on this mortal coil.  Usually I'm quick to point out the downside of anything while ignoring the upside but here's an exception.

I walked about five miles to an auto repair shop to pick up my wife's car.  My recollection is that I was told the car would be ready in the morning.  I don't recollect anyone saying that they'd call me as soon as it was ready.  All of this may be true or some of it or none of it at all.  Which isn't really the point.  The point is that when I got there the car wasn't finished and it wasn't going to be finished anytime soon.   Had I reacted on my knee-jerk action I would have been unpleasant because what I wanted was for the car to be ready.  This was what I wanted and what I want is really the only thing I care about.  

The upside?  I've learned through hard experience to keep my fucking mouth shut when I'm disturbed for any reason.  Restraint of tongue and pen and internet and all that.  And when my mouth is shut I usually arrive at the million dollar question: "How important is this?"  And almost immediately the million dollar answer appears: "Not very important."  And I let it go and my day moves on, without much collateral damage.

O.J.

We have play tickets at a theater about 50 miles from where we live so when we attend a performance we often spend the night so we can visit a museum and eat some unusual ethnic food - it's a cultural night out.  Our last hotel provided free parking but it was valet only.  Frankly, I can park my own car.  I can almost see where they park it.  Instead of waiting for some kid to get my car I could walk down and get it myself and be at the theater before I reached the head of the valet queue.  One of my buy-coffee-for-the-person-behind-me resolutions for the last several years has been to tip like a billionaire.  Actually, I'm probably more generous than that although it sticks slightly in my craw every time I do it.  We were in and out of the hotel twice so that was $20 in tips.  I can afford this and the guys who were fetching and retrieving the vehicle . . . god only knows how they can afford to live in this quite expensive city.  I feel like I'm being of service when I do this.  I feel like some of the money that God has so generously showered on me is meant for other people.  In the moment it's still a weird experience being generous but I know that it's one of those behaviors that makes me a better person.

To continue: I use a hotel booking website that provides some benefits to people that book enough hotels and we have accrued enough good will that we receive a $50 breakfast credit at most places.  I know this sounds like a lot but we're in L.A. so a couple of breakfast burritos with the tip pre-added and a delivery fee and there's your $50.  We had a little money left over so SuperK - ever the thrifty German - got a couple of $6 glasses of orange juice to take us right up to the edge.  We don't leave money on the table, goddammit.  A few minutes later the room service folks called up to say that they had made a mistake, that we had gone over the limit, so SuperK just had them remove the juices. But when the guy shows up with our food he also had the drinks.  I told him we didn't order them while I was tipping him an additional $5.  I changed my mind and said: "You know what - we'll take the juice."  He told me he'd have to charge me for them.  I waved him off cheerfully.  He paused for a minute and then said: "You know what - I don't feel like taking them back" and passed them back over to me.  Yeah, they're sitting on a cart that he's going to wheel back to the kitchen so it didn't look like it was going to be too much work.  I think it was just our whole demeanor and attitude that did it.  And the $5 didn't hurt, either.

Find a Mirror

 I do best when I'm looking inside.  God knows I like to look outside.  It's a hell of a lot easier finding fault in other people, places, and things than it is looking inward and trying to decide if I need to do some work and change something or if I've done all I can and now I need to sit patiently, quietly, and wait to see what's next.  I like working on you.  It's a lot less painless than working on me.

"The Serenity Prayer in your own words."

One of my good buddies at the morning meeting finally fed up with the homeless situation, called me, and unburdened himself, maintaining that we need to ban this one particularly disruptive guy.  He's a well-respected elder statesman in the meeting, not contaminated with the stink of being a grenade-throwing malcontent like me.  I told him I had his back.  I told him I'd stop by a church out in our neighborhood that I know is sympathetic to The Fellowship and when I did this they were receptive to hosting a new meeting.  When I told my friend he was awfully noncommittal.  Uh-Oh, I thought, here goes Charlie Brown barreling toward the football that he's finally sure that Lucy isn't going to snatch away at the last moment and I'm flat on my back again.  Got to laugh at ourselves.

I think that a big part of my general sense of annoyance at the world in general is a pretty deep frustration with the state of affairs in my country.  I totally get that we fiercely defend our personal liberty and the right to do what we think is best individually but after a while it just seems to me to be boorishly selfish.  I continue to go to my morning meeting and I continue to be irritated - not profoundly irritated but definitely irritated - and I suspect that I feel the absence of the people who left and I'm nurturing an indignation that they broke all kinds of laws and ignored the pleas from the medical community to avoid large gatherings is still alive and well.  The stuff that goes on in the meeting I attend isn't significant enough to explain my severe self-righteousness.

Find a mirror.  Look at the mirror.  See the problem.