Different But the Same

I have been slowly and mindfully reading the stories portion of The Big Book again.  When I was trying to get sober I was much more reassured by the stories than I was from the first 164 pages where the nuts and bolts of The Program are laid out  in detail.  That stuff was, by and large, over my head and beyond my ability to comprehend.  As I read the stories I'm struck by the fact that although the details of the lives and drinking careers of the members vary tremendously - from gutter row drunks to titled aristocrats from England, men and women, oldsters and youngsters - there are threads that appear over and over.  The one that is jumping out at me this time is the idea that we feel different, estranged from Earth People somehow.  I share the fact that most of the time what alcohol did for me is that it made me feel normal. Especially at the end it was no longer fun but rather a coping mechanism.  I felt like I was peering at the world through a cloudy, smoking piece of glass or that it was misting heavily or that a dense fog was swirling around me.  Whatever toolbox or guidebook that was informing these Earth People was not included in my lexicon.  I'd think: "What the fuck, that was a great idea!  Why didn't I think of that?"  They were moving around indistinctly.

One of my eternal conflicts with SuperK - not a conflict, really, but more of an ironic discussion - is that I draw a distinction between being weird and acting weird.  As if that makes my behavior acceptable.  She thinks that my drawing such a distinction is the definition of weird.  I dunno anymore.  I don't often fit in and I don't care.  I don't like people as I've pointed out innumerable times so why would I try to behave in a way that enables me to slide right into whatever dull and shallow world that they live in?

It is so peaceful being who you're supposed to be.

That Damn Tenth Step Again

"Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.  When these crop  up, we ask God at once to remove them.  We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.  Then we resolutely turn our thoughts  to someone we can help."

"When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to  be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates on the spot."

"Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint."   

"And when we were wrong promptly admitted it."

"It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is  something wrong with us."

As this is the Tenth Month our Daily Reflections collection is basing the readings on our Tenth Step: "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it." 

 

I definitely like the reminder that we "continue" to take personal inventory.  Most of us are so relieved and full of our selves about the progress we're making that after we complete our Fourth and Fifth Steps we think there's nothing left to do.  Not so fast, buster.

 

I like the reminder that this is a "personal" inventory.  We have quit inspecting and correcting the defects of others, no matter how glaring and obvious they are.  The phrasing is definitely not "continue to take your inventory," no matter how delicious a prospect that is.

I like that the Step says "when" we were wrong.  It definitely does not say "if" we are wrong.  It assures us that we have been wrong, we will be wrong, and we're probably doing something wrong right now.

I like that we're asked to be "prompt" in our admission of our faults.  Now.  Not later

Lying Liars Return

The most efficient way for me to let people get inside my head and bang around in there is for me to give them permission to do so.  I try to avoid the trap of letting other people's opinions of me - good or bad, right or wrong, true or false - define who I am.  I guard against mislabeling these opinions as facts.  This is particularly troublesome when I was young and some older person, some person in authority with control over parts of my life, repeats the same warnings or criticisms over and over, in a stern and serious voice.

"There is nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it."

William James

I hold myself responsible only for the clarity and truth and integrity of what I say and not for what others hear and feel because I don't control the perceptions of others.  I have to remember that beliefs don't exist out there in the world; they exist only in my own mind and only as long as I continue to believe them.  Damn, though, some of them are really firmly lodged in there.  They have become part of my identity and sometimes I'm not ready to let them go.  I think of my studied intolerance of other people - which must feed some twisted and warped sense of superiority - and my perfectionism - which drives me to unrealistic expectations of myself and can lead me to always feel that what I've done or accomplished is not enough.

"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will come to believe it, and you will come to believe it yourself."

Joseph Goebbels

Liar!

One of the meeting riffs yesterday was about lying.  There are so many great quotes and quips about lying.  One of my favorites, oft-repeated, is from my hero Homer Simpson: "I HATE being called a liar unless I've just told a lie or I'm about to tell a lie or I'm currently lying."

A new one that came up was "If you tell the truth then you never have to remember what you've said."  Brilliant!  One of my favorite schticks, oft-repeated, is that I have no real moral objection to lying: I'm a naturally good liar, I have many years of practice in the art of lying, and it can get me out of and through a lot of sticky situations.  The reason I no longer lie . . . or try not to lie so much . . . is that I hate getting caught in a lie.  Very embarrassing!  Plus, lying is truly exhausting.  When I was drinking I had the Main Lie and then I had to construct this elaborate structure of supporting, side lies to bolster the effectiveness of the Main Lie.  I told so many lies for so long that I became confused as to what was true and what was illusion.  It was exhausting!  And one of my favorite and most insidious traps is to remember that I'm not telling the truth just because I choose my words carefully so that - while I technically don't say any lying words - the person to whom I'm lying believes something that isn't true.  Liar!

In the funny way that meetings work the nice woman who lead the meeting and brought up the topic did not, I believe, mean for this to be what the members were going to focus on.  It was probably something she needed to hear.

Let me conclude with a perspicacious quote from another one of my heroes, the Master Liar George Costanza:  "Remember.  It's not a lie if you believe it."

The Magic of Giving

One of my favorite phrases from the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous is "The gift of desperation."  How great is that concept?  It reminds me that I can and must and often find the greatest gifts in my life have come from some of the darkest places.  It reminds me that if I'm always pursuing pleasure and running to escape pain then I'm going to miss a lot of important stuff.

From one of the Big Book stories: "I wish I could tell you  how and why A.A. works, but I don't know.  I only know that it does.  I think that no one comes to A.A. until he's tried everything else.  I lived a life where I couldn't enjoy anything.  I was scared to death.  And as long as alcohol eased situations socially, it helped just fine, but somewhere along the line it backfired."

Backfire is a great word.  It's when an internal combustion engine undergoes a mistimed explosion in the cylinder or exhaust.  A "mistimed explosion."  If I ever write a story for the Big Book I'm going to title it "A Mistimed Explosion."  Today, of course, it has come to mean when a plan or action rebounds adversely on the originator, having the opposite effect of what was intended.  Maybe I could write a second story and call it "Adversely Rebounding Actions."

Yesterday at my coffee shop I asked the youngster behind me what she was planning to order.  I do this to ensure that the patron isn't going to get some huge, overpriced specialty coffee drink that is going to set me back $28.99.  She was pleased and a little embarrassed (and did not refuse the offer which always kind of irritates me because I'd rather hoard my cash to fund my own huge, overpriced specialty coffee drinks) and scuttled off to the area reserved for people waiting for their drinks.  A bit later she came over and told me she was from Turkey and her face lit up when I told her that SuperK and I had recently visited Turkey and absolutely loved it.  She scuttled away and I went outside to hand my wife the hugely expensive slice of coffee cake I had purchased, hoping she wouldn't eat any of it while being pretty sure she would claim her half.  I always have to fight back the urge to stuff the whole thing in my mouth - eating all of it myself because I love coffee cake! - but the crumbs clinging to my lips would give me away.   When I strolled back into  the shop little Miss Turkey came over, asked if I had any dietary restrictions, then opened a container she was carrying, revealing a Turkish specialty treat she had made to share with her fellow employees at the clothing shop where she works, and told me to dig one out.  I pointed out SuperK and told her to head out to our table.  She called SuperK "Krees" which tickled my spouse no end.  She told us where she worked and we said we were going to stop by later for lunch and she said "great" (I often forget that in many cultures the sharing of food is paramount and an example of hospitality) and the whole thing was just magical.  It reminds me that the magic is in the little things.  It reminds me I fall short when I try to inflate myself in the eyes of the world.  

It was the highlight of my day and nothing else was even close.

Toltec V A.A. - You Make the Call!

"Unconditional love is recognizing the divinity in every human being we meet, regardless of his or her role in life or agreement with our particular way of thinking."  Toltec Proverb

Or in A.A. speak: "God, I pray that I seek to love rather than be loved; to understand rather than be understood; and to comfort rather than to be comforted."

It's all the same stuff.  The Toltecs flourished in Central Mexico around 1000 A.D., preceding the Aztecs.  Alcoholics Anonymous . . . well . . .  we're not quite that old but we're still flourishing.

"Every form of attachment starts with 'If this happens, then I will be happy and feel love' and 'If this does not happen, then I will suffer."  Toltec Proverb

"Until now, our lives have been largely devoted to running from pain and problems.  We fled from them as from a plague.  We never wanted to deal with the fact of suffering."  Step Seven in the 12 & 12.

I like how we try to differentiate between pain - which is inevitable - and suffering - which occurs when we try to get away from pain . . . which we absolutely cannot do all of the time.  Trust me - it has been tried and it cannot be done.  It's a part of existence whether we like it or not.

"Consequently the moment you start trying to control others is the same moment you place conditions on your love and acceptance of them.  We will look at the practice of having unconditional love for ourselves first and foremost, as you cannot give to others when you don't have for yourself."  Toltec Wisdom

"Either we tried to play God and dominate those about us, or we had insisted in being overdependent on them."  Step Twelve in the 12 & 12

If you're bored try this: look up the word "control" in the Alcoholics Anonymous literature.  It's in there a lot.  A lot.  "He has lost control."  "We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control."  "As we redouble our efforts at control, and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant."  (I like this - acute and constant suffering.  Boy, that brings me back to the Dark Times.)  "The idea that somehow, someday, he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker."  (I like the phrase "abnormal drinker."  I like the reference to an obsession - a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea.)

You Can't Go Home Again

I'm just back from a longer than normal visit to my childhood home town and one where I spent most of the first twenty years of my sobriety.  I've been gone for fifteen years which is not that long unless you're in your late sixties; a time when people start . . . you know . . . dying off or moving away or no longer attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and I mean that last part in a positive way - men and women who have been sober a long time and are getting older don't have the need or - frankly - the energy to make it to as many meetings as they used to.  And A.A. is a fluid society.  The make-up and composition of meetings changes often.  If you go back to a meeting you attended years ago don't be surprised if you don't see many people that you knew back then and don't be stunned if you don't recognize anyone or even if you recognize someone and they don't recognize you.  One guy I know had throat cancer and was indecipherable trying to talk through a trach tube and another was gasping for air courtesy of COPD.  This is how it goes.   This is the nature of things.  We're all just passing through and the length of the trip is not certain.  I include in my morning gratitude list thanks for good health.  It's a big get.

The purpose of the trip was ostensibly to attend a ceremony for an old high school friend who was being recognized for a long history of community service.  And it was the fiftieth anniversary of my high school reunion which is pretty cool and honestly a little terrifying.  My class was small  - fifty souls - and fifteen showed up and ten are dead so that's a fifty percent engagement which is pretty good, if you think about it.  There were some amazing personal interactions, some unexpected, with both my A.A. community and my high school class.  I heard a few anecdotes about me that I barely remembered from people I barely remember talking to.  There were some surprisingly powerful encounters, people glad to see me and vice versa, and not always for reasons that were clear to me.  It made me think about the fact that how we affect people can be opaque in the moment, only clear with the  passing of time.  One A.A. guy was at the point of tears, hugging me more than once.  Had no idea this was going to be a thing.  Did not remember any personal interactions with him but something I did or said, some way that I carried myself must have made an impression.  A high school friend pulled me aside and told me that he didn't have that many close friends but that I was one of them.  He was emotional saying this.  Another guy that I barely knew in high school said: "Man, I saw Seaweed was here.  I gotta go talk to Seaweed."  Would not have predicted that.  At.  All.

The city itself had changed quite a bit and I have no idea why this was so unexpected.  Buildings have sprung up or been torn down, retail areas I used to frequent have undergone a complet transition, traffic is worser and worser and the sprawl of a big Midwestern town continues apace.  People were very nice but in a different way than here in Southern California - more friendly in the moment but also a lot more guarded, more reserved.  It's easy to fit in quickly here because so many people are transplants but then that sense of place and time is harder to find.  It was the first trip were I felt like a visitor instead of a local who has been gone for a little while.  It didn't feel like "home" although it's the place I'll always call home.  "I'm going home," I told people prior to my flight.