Maybe. Maybe Not.

 Our Monday meeting is based on the Big Book - the leader reads a sentence or paragraph from the first 164 pages and then speaks on what was read.  At about the halfway point a man shouted what sounded like an obscenity outside the building.  This isn't terribly unusual at our urban location.  Shortly afterwards a powerfully built younger guy came down the stairs and entered the room, carrying a banana, a cup of coffee, and a set of keys.  

(This sounds like the set-up of a bad vaudeville bit.  "He ate the coffee and the keys and was jamming the banana into the ignition of a Maserati . . . when a Jewish priest came up and asked for directions to the ashram . . . . ")

He didn't look like he was homeless but he had a vaguely confrontational air about him.  The meeting ended, people split off into twos or threes to chat, the guy got up, collected his belongings and starting drifting to the door.  It's a source of pride with me that you can't sneak out of my meeting without interacting with someone so I intercepted him, a touch warily, I admit, and introduced myself, asked how his day was going.  He stood there for a few beats, collecting himself, when his lips started trembling.  Not very good, he said, I'm not having a very good day.  I could see tears welling up in his eyes.  I just waited patiently.  Eventually, he starting listing all the shit going on in his life that wasn't too great.  His eyes filled up and tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto the floor.  He made no attempt to wipe his face or stop weeping.

It made me think of the despair I felt when I was ending my long, brutal run unsuccessfully trying to best King Alcohol.  I really had no words of wisdom.  I mean, what can you say?  Except that it's going to get better and you don't have to feel this way anymore if you don't want to.  Alcohol is a tireless enemy if you're an alcoholic.  It does not give up.

I'm not the most tolerant guy in the world when it comes to . . .  well . . . people in general.  I think most people are idiots.  I think I'm an idiot.  We're all fucking idiots.  The point being that I don't really care much about sponsoring people.  I don't see the point in telling someone else what to do.  I don't know what they should do.  Why would someone want me to tell them what to do?  I'm happy to tell you what worked for me and then you can decide if the results are something that's attractive to you.  If so, maybe you try it yourself.  If not, no skin off my back.  I had to find my own way and you will, too.  Circling back to the point again which I lost track of is that I've found a way to bring my own experience, strength, and hope to The Program.  As Mr. Outgoing I tackle the new people before they can escape.

Think we'll see that dude again?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  There was another brand new guy who came to several meetings.  Three of us were standing in line after one when this dude came storming out of the bathroom, cursing the employee who obviously didn't want a homeless looking guy using their bathroom.  He blew past us, head down.  Haven't seen him again.  Our embarrassing behavior!

GOAT

 From one of Bill W's pamphlets, this one on faith and spirituality . . . .

"(New members) just don't realize that faith is never a necessity for A.A. membership; that sobriety can be achieved with an easily acceptable minimum of it, and that our concepts of a higher power and God as we understand Him afford everyone a nearly unlimited choice of spiritual belief and action."

More from the Sponsorship pamphlet . . . 

"The principle of rotation not only allows (established) members to move on in service, but also give newer members the privilege of serving.  Rotation also allows them to understand that no one should hold onto a position of trust long enough to feel a proprietary interest and thereby discourage newcomers from service.  Experience shows clearly that the members getting the most out of the A.A. program, and the groups doing the best job of carrying the A.A. message to still-suffering alcoholics, are those for whom sponsorship is too important to be left to chance."

Paul Tillich was a German existential philosopher and highly influential Lutheran cleric . . . 

"The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements as well as one's deepest failures is a definite symptom of maturity."

I'm not so bad and I'm not so great.  I'm not a piece of %^$!! and I'm not the GOAT.  I'm just a dude . . . right in the middle.

Chekhov, Twain, and Amman

"Any idiot can face a crisis; it's this day-to-day living that wears you out."  Anton Chekhov

We were on a cruise ship for part of our last vacation.  One day we got off the boat for a hike in a remote part of Greenland and the mosquitoes were pestilential.  Biblically so.  Actually, they were more of a flying gnat that didn't bite but just swarmed around your face, flying into your eyes and nose and ears.  I'm not sure what their end game was.  I can't imagine that flying into my ear hole was a satisfying end for this bug but their motivation remains opaque to me.  Anyway, back on the ship we chatted for a while with a couple who were also on the hike and the woman complained that none of the staff had warned us about these insects.  I was aware of the scourge of summer insects in Greenland - it's written in every travel book - and had bug spray and kind of a beekeeper's insect net that covered my head and face.  Her husband shushed her gently, reminding her that we really need to blame ourselves when things don't go the way we want.  I secretly enjoyed this.

On a similar note LSD Tom was at the meeting today.  His right leg was noticeably swollen and he was clearly limping.  I cornered him in the kitchen.  His leg is infected.  How does your thigh get infected?  From a testosterone shot.  I rolled my eyes internally.  Why this healthy, single 50 year old man needs to get a testosterone shot is beyond me but then so is a woman doubling the size of her breasts.  If that wasn't funny/sad/weird enough he told me that this was the second time he's had problems with one of those shots.  Talk about causing your own problems . . . 

"He who leads a humble life has wisdom in his heart."  Jordanian proverb

 When I'm feeling off it's usually because I'm uncomfortable with something I'm doing or with something I should be doing that I'm not doing.  Usually, I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing.  That's usually the problem with me.

I tend to think that the best people are given the gravest challenges.  The best people can handle them.  God doesn't test us with anything we aren't capable of handling.  I believe I get what I need and not necessarily what I want so I'm damned careful to be thankful when - as so often happens - I do get what I want.  It's embarrassing how often I get what I want.  I'm like a spoiled rich kid looking at my Christmas list, realizing I got everything on it plus some more stuff I wasn't greedy enough to also ask for.

"I never argue with idiots.  They drag you down to their own level and then beat you with experience."  Mark Twain

Love people for who they are and not who you want them to be.

Spirituality V Religion

 Eddie Rickenbacker was a pilot whose plane was lost over the South Pacific during WWII.  The surviving members of his crew floated for 21 days in a life raft before they were eventually rescued.  He had this to say: "The biggest lesson I learned was that if you have all the fresh water you want to drink and all the food you want to eat, you ought never to complain about anything."

I might add a warm, dry place to sleep at night and then your needs are met.  Everything else is a want.  To answer my complaining about some insignificant problem a sponsor once told me: "Seaweed, all your problems are problems of prosperity."  Shut me up, that one did.

More general suggestions about sponsorship that also apply to all of our interpersonal interactions in The Fellowship: "Good A.A.s appreciate that alcoholics have been able to achieve and maintain sobriety without any belief in a personal Higher Power.  Perhaps we might point out the distinction between the words 'spiritual' and 'religious.' "

Spiritual:  Relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.

Religious: Having a strong belief in God or Gods; devoted to God or to the powers or forces believed to govern life.

And if someone you know drinks again (as many of us do, unfortunately): "It order to make the return truly a new beginning, it may be wise at this point to avoid postmortems on the reasons for the slip."  I try to tell the relapser that I'm glad they came back - because many people don't - and that I appreciate that they were courageous enough to tell someone they had a drink - because many people are embarrassed enough about their actions that they keep this secret.

Here and Anon

 I was seeing a counselor in sincity once who remarked: "I have a couple of close friends.  That's enough.  I don't have time for a lot of friends."  She was responding some complaint I was voicing about my lack of friends or my lack of quality friends or why my friends weren't as excited that I was their friend instead of the opposite.  She said this in a positive way, too, I think.  She wasn't bemoaning the fact that she didn't have the time to hold up her end of the obligation of being a friend. While I do like having lots of acquantinances I also see the wisdom of holding them loosely.  The more people, places, and things that I collect means that the time I have to spend cultivating and maintaining these people, places, and things goes up exponentially.  My thoughts and actions on this topic has been evolving quickly lately.

One of the reasons we so value the Fourth Step and all subsequent refresher Fourth Steps and the countless inventories we take is that we're always finding new stuff.  We're always changing and if don't adapt then we squander what we have and fail to grow into the people we're meant to be.  What worked well yesterday might not be the best thing for tomorrow.

Sometimes I need to go to a meeting and sometimes I need to take care of business.  I, personally, need to be a little careful in this regard.  Sometimes I'm just filling time with my attendance.  Not a terrible thing but maybe sometimes a wasteful thing.

More from the Sponsorship pamphlet . . . which I think has really good advice for dealing with newer people in any capacity:  "It has already been pointed out that we stay sober through reliance on the  A.A. program, not on any one member.   The sponsor will  also have encouraged the newcomer to  talk to other A.A. members with longer-term sobriety.  Now might be the time for a heartfelt talk in which the sponsor again explains the importance of relying on the entire A.A. program."  The ego involved with someone who thinks that what they say about recovery, what their experience has been, applies to everyone else.  Whew.

"Sponsorship is a flexible venture, and good sponsors are themselves flexible in working with new people.  It is just as much a mistake to thrust unwanted help upon a newcomer as it is to refuse help when a newcomer asks for it.  Occasionally, it may be wise to introduce the newcomer to an A.A. member who shares more of the newcomers's background and interests."  I hear people mention that they've been "fired" by someone they sponsor.  Well, OK, I guess.  Personally, I've never been surprised when someone turns elsewhere for advice and I can say this even when I think the individual is advice shopping.  If I don't like what you're saying I can look at myself and find what's inside me that makes the advice unpalatable or I can go find someone else who says what I want to hear.

Serenity, Recovery, and Seaweed

 From this little pamphlet on Serenity . . . 

"So if we find ourselves in an apparently hopeless situation, with every avenue of escape blocked, we must not rebel.  Instead, we must realize that God has a reason for permitting it.  Most of us can look back over our lives and see how the loving hand of God has brought a happy ending to many events that seemed to be unmitigated tragedies at the time.  The trouble is that most of us think happiness consists in the fulfillment of our wants and desires, or at the very least in freedom from pain and suffering.  Actually, it consists in the serenity that comes from conforming our own will to the will of God."

And from this little book on recovery . . . 

"What difference does it make if things are left undone tonight?  Will it matter ten years from now?  Nothing is so important that we should carry tension and worry into our relaxation time.  What is important is our ability to accept the day's events by the time we're ready to sleep."

Not long ago I reread the last ten years of my personal writing journals.  Two things struck me: How rarely the things that caused me angst came to pass and how consistently I worry about the same few things, sort of a Top Ten of Personal Anxieties.  Moreover, I saw how often I felt like I shouldn't be worrying about things that clearly merited some angst.  If I hear an emergency siren and a friend or loved one isn't home I probably shouldn't panic.  If my mother and father die within a year of each other I probably should expect to be upset at some point.  

I'm trying to be grateful for all of my blessings and I'm trying to develop perspective at all my irritations and bedevilments.  In the end, in the long run, they are crashing cymbals and tinkling bells, all sound and fury, amounting to nothing when all is said and done.  One of my core principles is trying to understand that contentment consists not in getting what I want but in enjoying what I have.  As a grown-up I realize that if I'm only contented when I'm getting what I want then I'm going to be discontented most of the time.  As a grown-up I know that if I look closely enough then I can find something enjoyable - or at least beneficial and constructive - in any situation, no matter how disagreeable.

If only I look for it.

Solution Based - Problem Based - You Make the Call

 I hadn't planned on attending a meeting today but I woke up early and made the drive.  The meeting was small so I'm glad I made the effort to go.  Moreover, there were a couple of women there that I've known since I arrived in SoCal.  One of them, a flight attendant, recently moved back into the area from Texas, where she had been based, and spent ten days with her ex-husband in a blackout drunk, a continuation of the relapse she suffered in Dallas.  She did not look good.  The other woman, a chronic relapser, was recently released from the hospital where she was undergoing treatment for brain damage she suffered from her renewed drinking.  She looked worse.  I like both of these women.  Between them they've got a few days of sobriety.

The meeting was led by a woman who recently completed her year milestone.  She has a lot of professional responsibility as the executive director of a homeless shelter and is in the midst of a difficult employee situation that she's prevented from talking about due to confidentiality restrictions.  Driving home last night the idle thought crossed her mind that it sure would be relaxing to get home and have one drink; in fact, she used the charged word "cocktail" to sort of class it all up.  While it didn't seem to me that she was actually going to go through with this plan of action she was aware enough to pull off the highway for a short spell to dispel this kind of thinking.  I was struck by the two examples this morning: two problem based, one solution based.  The director looked pretty good this morning.   There was also a young woman there who has a couple of months clean and sober.  A better series of lessons to hear I can not imagine.

I often share the story of my last drink: Easter Sunday in 1987.  I drank and drank and drank and never experienced even a minute of relief, the kind of relief that the director imagined she might have.  The jumping-off point.  The instance where I realized I couldn't imagine a life with alcohol or without alcohol and, folks, that covers all the time there is.  I can remember that day with startling clarity.  It was one of the worst days of my life.

A surprising number of people believe that other people can hurt their feelings.

Acceptance is the only real source of tranquility, serenity, peace.

We can very seldom change people, though we can change ourselves.

We have free will which means we can choose a path of evil or a path of goodness.  Sometimes I wonder why man wasn't just programmed to walk a righteous path but then we'd be robots and what's the fun in that?  If you want a reward then you have to choose to do good.