Tirelessly Complaining

As a general rule I don't present myself as a potential sponsor very often as I think this is a task/chore for newer people who are closer to the horrors of active alcoholism than I am.  And I travel a lot which is disruptive to continuity in the recovery process.  Aaaaaaaaand I don't really want to do it anymore.  New people are annoying and I'm intolerant and impatient, a bad combination.  So you can see it takes me a while slinging bullshit before I get to the truth of the matter.

Back to this new guy who poked and prodded me about my willingness to be a sponsor until I agreed to step in.  This guy got burned with a DUI during his latest experiment with drinking and he has been struggling with some significant changes in his field of employment which is stressing him financially.  As if all this is not enough he has been cycling back and forth to the Midwest to deal with his aging parents: his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and is undergoing treatment for that while his ex-military father is descending into dementia.  He has a lot on his plate.  He is also not working much of a recovery program so when we do talk (by that I mean he talks) I'm assaulted by a lengthy litany of self-pity and grievance.

While this is understandable and common and I realize I'm fulfilling a need of his by simply listening, I'm beginning to tire of the complaining.  I get it - life can be tough.  I also get this - most of my problems are of my own making or they are problems that everyone is going to face from time to time.  Life is fair that way.  We're all going to get sick and die.  Complaining about it isn't going to change anything.

Here's what I want to say to him: "I'm sorry that you are going through these difficulties.  One of the things that has helped me over the years is trying to differentiate between the problem and the solution.  I tend to focus on the problem and this is not helpful in the long run.  I also tend to discount my part in taking the problem and making it bigger and badder than it needs to be.  I also tend to ignore my part in the problem in the first place.

First of all: your DUI.  I do not doubt that there is some truth in your belief that there is a financial interest for The Authorities in imposing penalties.  This is America, after all.  Money is King.  Money Rules.  I also understand that when I was getting behind the wheel of a car when I was drunk I'm lucky I didn't wreck my car or wreck my car and injure myself or wreck my car and injure or kill someone else.  The rules and penalties are laid out.  When I got caught doing something wrong or illegal it was hardly fair for me to complain about the punishment no matter how unfair or excessive I thought the punishment was.  So today when I have a problem I try to get past the problem and get to the solution, to look on the bright side.  You could be sitting in jail right now, not earning money or helping care for your parents.  You're actually pretty lucky that everything has turned out the way it turned out.

Second of all and lastly - be grateful there's no thirdly of all for how tiring would that be? - I don't get the sense that you are part of any recovery community.  I don't care if it's not Alcoholics Anonymous.  That doesn't work for everyone.  I do suspect that without the support and care of other people - church, group therapy, whatever you choose - that your recovery is going to be a lot more of a slog than it needs to be.  There are few things worse than me sitting alone and relitigating my problems in my own mind.  That's a scary, dysfunctional, diseased place a lot of the time.

I'm definitely going to run this by someone before I send it to him.

Verbal Body Blows

Normally the Twelfth Month includes a lot of reminders about how important our service work is to our own sobriety and the First Month emphasizes powerlessness but I seem to be stuck on the service end of things even though we're in the New Year . .  .    

There have been a couple of instances lately where different men have expressed a lot of gratitude for my friendship.  I appreciate this greatly but I do get the sense that they are overestimating how I feel about the relationships.  I like both of them fine but they are not men that I find particularly interesting or that I have a desire to get to know better.  This is not a criticism of who they are but more a statement of who I am.  I really love the baseball/football game analogy.  Some people think football is great but if you don't like football don't go to football games and complain that it's not a baseball game.  It's not a baseball game!  These two guys are football fans and I'm a baseball guy.  We're never going to connect in a way that interests me.

Here's the point: I'm trying to think less about myself and more about others and even though I've been doing this a long, long time I still spend a lot of time thinking about myself and not enough time thinking about others.  When I see these guys I put on my "I give a shit" face and hitch up my britches and listen to the complaining and the tirades.  Neither of them seems to be very committed to any meaningful change and I'm not a guy to give commands or instructions or tasks so I see that this is one of those cases where what they need and want is what I'm giving them.  Not what I want to give them but what they want to receive, and this seems to be helping them.  I don't know how many more times or how many different ways I can make the fairly tiresome point that Being of Service means I'm trying to help someone else in the way they need/want to be helped.

A new guy delivered a delicious verbal body blow to me outside the meeting a few days ago.  I thought it was funny and - as I have pointed out - if a prodigious shit-giver like me can't take it I should go dig a hole and crawl down into it.  During the meeting I went to replenish my coffee and he followed me into the kitchen to make sure that I hadn't taken offense.  This made me happy.  I think he and I have relationships in recovery where we can talk about things like this.  I was glad he felt comfortable clearing the air immediately instead of wondering if he had done something to piss me off.  I assured him that it is almost impossible to offend someone who doesn't really care what anyone thinks about him, and to assure him that he had never done anything but put a smile on my face.

Is Crapulous A Word?

From the Toltecs . . . "You soon realize that in reality you have all your own answers, and any role models or teachers you engage with are only there to point you on the way back home to yourself."

This fits in well with my theory that a good life well-lived is a better example than a lot of talk.  I hope people are looking at my behavior rather than listening to my words.  As you will soon see my words can be crapulous.

From the Big Book comes one of my favorite passages . . .  "He cannot picture life without alcohol.  Some day he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it.  Then he will know loneliness such as few do.  He will be at the jumping-off place.  He will wish for the end."

Here's another one .  . .  "we had but two alternatives: one was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the unconsciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other was to accept spiritual help."

One more and then I'll stop - I promise . . . "These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all and once having lost their self-confidence their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. "

As a committed liar I wonder why anyone would believe any promises that I make so maybe this is the last one . . .  : "Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang.

On a side note . . . Bill likes the words "clang" and "clung."  Another one of his phrases that I love is "clung to the claim."  Sounds like a Black Sabbath song.

I like these passages from The Big Book.  I like the forceful words: Gates of Hell, astonishingly, bitter end, intolerable situation, wish for the end.  The founders were not mincing words.  They were not easing into anything.  They could have renamed The Big Book "You Are Going to DIE!" and the warning still would not have swayed some of us.  I felt for the longest time like I was underwater, trying to figure which way was up as I slowly ran out of oxygen

Green Hair and Eggs

I have been marveling at this idea that I spent a large portion of my life allowing other people to define who I was.  And, to be honest with you, reveling in the knowledge that I don't do that anymore.  From People Pleaser to Authentic Seaweed.  The hilariously irritating fact is that my relationships with people have never been better - people want authenticity.  There's nothing more irritating than talking to someone who is clearly putting up a front so that you will like them.  People sense bullshit.  I want you to relate to me just the same way you'd relate to the staff at a coffee shop.  

The other hilariously irritating fact is that not only did I let your approval of who I am define how I acted around you but that I'd go totally in the opposite direction and allow your disapproval of who I am do the same thing.  If I want to die my hair green but don't do it because I think you'd disapprove this is an example of me being disingenuous.  But if I die my hair green just because I think it would annoy you that's just a different way of being inauthentic.  In both cases I'm allowing you to define who I am.  Now, since I'm no longer a total idiot I understand that sometimes I have to conform to standards I may not agree with.  If I had dyed my hair green when I was working . . . well  . . . this wouldn't have helped me advance in my career.  Manufacturing engineers aren't going to buy anything from a middle-aged dude with green hair.

Help! I Need Somebody

Help is what someone needs, not what I want to give.           

There's a young guy who comes to our meeting a couple of times a week.  He suffers from some pretty debilitating mental illnesses.  Not scary mental illness but the kind that makes it difficult for him to navigate the world.  He has crises from time to time which require brief hospitalizations and a change in his medication schedule.  I sense he's quite bright - he may be one of those people who intuitively handles electronics - but he comes across as somewhat odd and tentative and a little hard to talk to.  He's a wonderful guy who's never going to be able to handle life in the way that you and I would consider conventional.  I try to really make him feel welcome and noticed.  Big hugs and questions about his life, that sort of thing.  He came up to me recently and asked if I wanted to "hang out."  

Sigh.  I do not want to hang out.  It's not thrilling or interesting to talk to.  Again, he's not completely compromised  but he's not running on all cylinders, either.  I'm happy to help out anyway I can . . . I want to help out anyone I can . . . I want to help out in a manner and fashion to my liking and this is not hanging out with this guy.  This sounds pretty selfish - which means it is pretty selfish - but it's not scary selfish, anyway.  I do have my own interests and activities that occupy my time and the meetings are for my benefit, too.  So . . . I relent.  I told him the two days next week that I'm certain to be at the meeting and invited him to join me for coffee.  He pointed out he doesn't attend on those days and asked if I would come on a couple of days that I don't attend but that he does.

Sigh.  Whadda ya goin' to do?

More will be revealed.  Not today, mind you, but they will be revealed.

Needs and Wants

Any action I take that is motivated by fear cannot also be motivated by unconditional love, and this ultimately leads to suffering in one form or another.  When I stop trying to force or control the people and situations that are happening around me and instead surrender to whatever life brings then I can find some contentment.  This doesn't mean I don't try to change things when it's within my power to do so but I hope I'm becoming adept at identifying the situations that are beyond my control, and in those instances trust and surrender to whatever the moment brings because I know I'll get exactly what I need.

I did not say there would always be enough of whatever I want in the moment, but rather what I need.  That is a big difference.  Sometimes there needs to be a certain amount of distance between me and the event before I can see this truth.  When I don't get what I want, I usually find that I get exactly what I need instead.  And I know that I am more than enough despite all of the urging of society to push harder and further.  Much of the suffering I endure is self-inflicted and it usually circles back to the idea that I'm not enough.

Pondering Seaweed

With some minor smugness I will say that my first barrage of dubious wisdom aimed at a complaining alcoholic landed cleanly.  It's luck, probably, more than anything.  I hope that my detachment and tact played a part in this soft landing but alcoholics are famously touchy and prone to view almost anything in the most negative light.  I am/was encouraged to go to work on Complaining Alcoholic Number Two when he sent me this brief text yesterday after our phone call: "I'm glad you're my friend."  This is a guy I would say I'm friendly with rather than that we're friends.  Not close friends.  Jeez, I should look up the definition of a friend, I guess.  Let's say I don't look forward eagerly to running into him.  He does far too much complaining for me to much enjoy his company.  That being said he's a nice man who is feeling sorry for himself and spending little time looking at his part in things.  Fair enough.  It's a lot easier and a lot more fun to blame people, places, and things for my difficulties than to see my part in it.

Because I like walking in minefields and on thin ice here goes anyway: "I have been pondering our conversation yesterday (if him talking while I listen can be called a conversation) and applying it to my circumstances to see I could add some perspective.  Everyone has to find their own way to work a recovery program and my way is my way and that's all it is.  I will say that one thing that may be of help to you - it has been a tremendous help to me - is to be an active member of a recovery community.  For me that's A.A.  For some people it's church or counseling.  If I didn't have the opportunity and responsibility to find my own way I would never have found the way that works for me . . . but regular contact with others who are in similar circumstances has helped a lot.  I do hear in your voice a lot of isolation.  When I'm talking to other people I sometimes hear thoughts and ideas that surprise me and - even more important - I surprise myself by what comes out of my own mouth.  Sometimes I need to talk around a subject before I get to the answer, and that requires that someone is listening while I talk.  Look, I get it - if my choice was to spend the rest of my life in close proximity to fifty other people or live by myself on a remote desert island I could make that decision almost immediately.  But that phrase "My best thinking got me to where I was when I was drinking" rings true for me."

I may send this and I may not.  Complaining Alcoholic Number One has been around The Program for a lot longer and is a much closer friend.  

Pondering . . . Pondering .  .  .  Pondering . .  .