We All Have Something To Say

Diverse: Different; dissimilar; varied.

One of the real strengths of The Fellowship is that a tremendously diverse group of people is thrown together to try to solve a common problem which is killing us dead -- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but with a ruthless efficiency. we are people with every imaginable opinion and belief. We are people who would not ordinarily mix. Recovering alcoholics are like survivors of a shipwreck, drifting in a lifeboat in the Sargasso Sea -- no one is worried about making sure that the Democrats outnumber the Republicans. We're just trying to keep the sharks out of the boat.

As a Drunk, I used to sit in bars surrounded by people who thought and acted like I did, which was clearly not one of my better ideas, and this from someone with a long and storied history of making really lousy decisions. We solved the world's problems. We couldn't believe the stupidity of anyone who didn't share our views. We would occasionally break bones patting ourselves on the back for our brilliance and insight. Then I would go outside and fall asleep in my car, in January, with the windows open. That's the guy I want to have making decisions that affect all of the people in the free world -- the guy passed out in the back booth of a crummy bar.

The Program has taught me to listen.

Go Ahead -- Try to Stump Me

Answer: A solution to a problem.

I have finally reached a stage in my Advanced Sobriety where I have all of the answers. There is no situation, occurrence, happenstance, or conundrum that I do not have the ability to solve, all by myself, with no help from anyone. Moreover, my solutions are now invariably correct. I answer quickly and with assurance. I never waver in my judgment. I walk into my future boldly, with a strong gait, a steady purpose, and a spine of steel. I ask myself: Who knows better than me?

I trip immediately and fall on my face, dropping my cup of coffee and breaking my nose. In a flash of insight, which I am doomed to repeat every day, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, it comes to me: Oh, yeah, everyone knows better than me.

My basic instincts have gone awry. My decision making machinery is infested with rats and termites and has picked up a nasty computer virus called The Evil Hand of Doom, which originated somewhere in the former Czech Republic. I now try to base my decision making on this simple bit of advice: if I want to do something, then I probably shouldn't do it, and if I don't want to do something, then it's probably something that I should do.

I have found it most helpful to check out my thinking with other people.

I'd Advise Against It

Advise: Implies the making of recommendations as to a course of action by someone with actual or supposed knowledge, experience, etc.

It has come to my attention that people are not interested in my advice, despite the fact that I am a Senior Advisor. As one who knows everything there is to know, who is never wrong and always right, who can immediately find the solution to the most difficult problem, who can divine the correct course of action for every man, woman and child -- I find this vexing.

I'm the Answer Man. Just ask me - I'll tell you. I can answer any question as long as you aren't interested in the truth or concerned with wisdom and sound judgement. Actually, I'm the Wrong Answer Man. I don't have a clue. I can't go from A to B. I can't find the on switch. But that has never stopped me from trying to run the world.

In sobriety I have learned never to give advice to someone who doesn't ask for it. Each of us is free to live our lives how we choose. When someone tells me what they have already done, I figure they aren't looking for my advice. I figure they would have called before they did what they have already done if they wanted to hear what I had to say. Even then I don't think they want to know.

That's alright. We're nothing more than children trying to grow up. My early mentors tried to keep me in the vicinity of the right path and then let me wander off on my own. I learned a lot of lessons by sticking a metal fork into a live electrical outlet.

ZZZTTT.

You Have No Idea

Winston Churchill once said: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I have no personal knowledge that he said this, of course. Someone else might have said it. Who would take this comment seriously if, say, Alice Cooper had said it? Maybe he didn't say anything like this at all. Maybe he said: "If one more thing goes wrong, I am going to FREAK OUT!" No way his political handlers would have let that comment circulate among the liberal, elite media. And I may be misquoting him. Years of drugs and alcohol did a number on my short term memory and also on my long term memory. And on my ability to perform simple arithmetic at times.

The point I started out trying to make is that such a sentiment would be fine for someone facing the kinds of problems that he was facing. What did Churchill have to worry about? An evil Nazi regime bent on a global hegemony, the aerial blitz on London, thousands and thousands of his countrymen dying in a brutal war?

To that I say: Pshaw. To that I say: Open up my closet of Fears and feast your eyes on the menagerie of horror living there. Winston Churchill would have run screaming into the night. He would have wished for the good old days when the German Luftwaffe was raining down death and destruction on his city. Our final memories of Winston would have been a doddering old man peering out of a security window in the local sanitarium.

"If you had the problems that I have, you would drink, too."
Horseface Steve -- circa late summer 1986

Next: On the first subsequent occasion: as, when we next meet.

I have had a hankerin' lately to question some of the core beliefs and founding principles of Twelve Step recovery. While your average non-professional shouldn't attempt this, it is quite reasonable for some one of my massive intellect, profound insights, and uncanny ability to cut through all of the flak and fog of life. I see life as it is. The mystery of existence is no mystery to me. I can reveal the wonders of the universe with a wave of my hand.

Which leads me to cast a skeptical eye on the concept of "doing the next right thing." I would prefer to do the next ten - the next fifty - right things all at once and get them out of the way. Then I can concentrate on doing what I want to do, whether or not these are right things or not. I want to see in the future. I don't want to waste my time doing little, unimportant things that may not get me what I want as quickly as I want it, which is quickly indeed. It would be more efficient for me to be able to skip any small actions that don't lead to the desired outcome.

I want to do the "final right thing." That way I can behave as atrociously as possible and still end up smelling like a rose.

Are You Quaking in Your Boots?

One of our beloved promises alleges that "fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us." This seems highly improbable to most of us. This is a big matzoh ball to swallow. Lack of fear? No more fear? I'm all about the fear. If you take the fear out of my life I'd deflate like a helium balloon. I'd disintegrate into a dry, powdery dust that would blow away in the wind.



I have spent years and years nurturing and feeding every possible kind of fear, anxiety, and unease and am actually uncomfortable with the idea of giving it up. Alcoholics don't like change. I prefer sitting in boiling hot sewage to getting up and going somewhere else. I'm kind of used to the sewage smell and the toxic vapors. My skin has toughened up and the wounds have scabbed over. I'm worried that I may be a little chilly if I get up. I've convinced myself that I like the sewage life. Anybody can sit in a warm tub of clean water -- it takes a tough son of a bitch to handle hot sewage.


While I have never been able to eliminate all of the fear in my life, I have amped down the volume. I am not overwhelmed with fear. I'm underwhelmed with it, maybe, but it isn't the master of my reality any more. Sure, I have to do battle with the occasional wave of apprehension or agitation. I have qualms. I sink into a blue funk of dismay, dread, and panic. I get the creeps and the cold shivers.

But it's a lot, lot better than it used to be.

Mob Rule

Meditation: Solemn reflection on sacred matters as a devotional act; deep, continued thought; reflection.

My mind is like a huge gymnasium filled with insane people screaming at the top of their lungs, barely in control of their faculties. They are screaming for revenge, murder, justice. They want more sex. They are hungry and thirsty and tired. They have been treated poorly and they know who is to blame and they are out to exact payment for these slights and insults. They don't think. They never think. They wake up screaming and they scream all day until they fall asleep, exhausted, and have terrible, awful nightmares. This is why they wake up screaming.

Meditation is like trying to get everyone to settle down. I have a comfortable chair in a quiet room. I sit down and close my eyes and try to silence the fury of this murderous mob. It's almost never a fair fight. Maybe once or twice have I gotten the entire gym to play nice. Most of the time the mob is in control. Sometimes I get a section or two to calm down. But it's a big crowd and they're pretty worked up.

My Higher Power hands out a lot of gold stars and smiley faces for any effort whatsoever. God knows this is hard. A lot of good things come from the effort.