Isolation

Isolate:  In medicine, to place (a patient with a contagious disease) apart from others to prevent the spread of infection.


One thing that I try to do is get out among people.  As an introvert who likes to isolate and generally hates people I'm not suggesting  actually interacting with these people -- more along the lines of being where other people are so that I can watch them and secretly criticize everything about them including, but not limited to, their appearance, behavior, and general social etiquette.  Kind of a constructive criticism, as it were.


I like to sit someplace quietly with a good view of the natives but hopefully hidden myself -- shades are a de rigeuer addition -- have a cup of coffee and watch the world swirl on by.  It's interesting what you can see and learn.  I try to limit my electronic screen interaction as well - which dates me, of course -- because I think my mind needs some time to drift and wander around on its own.   I need some time for some productive thinking.  I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms - we aren't generally thrilled with too much thinking in the recovery world, preferring the meat and bones of actual action -- but it isn't always a bad thing when practiced in moderation.  It's the isolating while thinking which complicates everything.

Embiggening My Good Qualities

Perfect:                 Complete in all respects; without defect or omission; sound; flawless. 
Perfectionist:       A person who believes in a doctrine of perfectionism.
Perfectionism:    Any doctrine that holds that moral, religious, or social perfection can and should be attained in this life. (Ed note: Apparently in the next life you can be a total screw-up).


I spend way too much time considering where I've fallen short and way, way, WAY, too much time embiggening my faults and defects.  It takes a conscious effort for me to bring my not inconsiderable powers of concentration back around to what I've done well and, like most of us, I've done many, many things well.  For me it's akin to turning around a huge aircraft carrier  steaming ahead at under full power; there's a lot of forward momentum that has to be arrested.  There's the sound of the klaxon blaring its warning alarm and lots of strong men, naked to the waist and covered with tattoos, glistening with sweat, muscles heaving as they spin wheels and rush around and throw the vessel's massive engines into reverse.  That's what it feels like to me.  The urge to plow ahead in stormy seas to the forbidden island of Total Negativity is that powerful.


Which is pretty much total bullshit.  All of us have plenty of good qualities and characteristics.  For some reason the alcoholic in me doesn't think so.  One of my regular practices is to review my day before I go to sleep.  For me -- just for me -- I'm usually able to say I remained sober and clean; I didn't smoke cigarettes or drink 17 pots of coffee; I ate real food; I got some exercise and enough rest; I spent a chunk of time on my recovery; I read or wrote or did something else to give my mind a work out.  I don't do all of these things every day but I work away at it.  There's some good stuff in there.  I force my mental aircraft carrier to reverse course and $#!! think about this good stuff despite my desire to fish out anything I did wrong during the course of the day and like, totally obsess over it.


At the meeting yesterday I complimented a woman whose 15 year old son I have seen at a couple of parties.  He behaves better at that tough age than I do today.  Of course, she brushed off the compliment, preferring to imbue her son with some innate qualities of polite goodness that she assumes that she had no part in imbuing.  While there are some kids that are by nature easy to raise I don't think any parent can discount the effect they have on the kids they're raising.  I could see by her reaction that she didn't spend much time considering this.  She seemed genuinely surprised and very pleased.


Today I can give myself a break.

Genghis Khan

A few months ago I started to attend a 12 Step meeting where the format is to read one of the Steps each week starting at Step number one and proceeding in order, without skipping any of the less interesting or "throw away" Steps, until you conclude with the twelfth and final Step.  I've almost always done this in my recovery.  I like the discipline that's required for me to thoroughly read and discuss a Step each week.  Our main text is also wonderfully illuminating on the topic of working the Steps but some of the chapters combine multiple Steps and a few of them get pretty sketchy treatment, in my humble-ish opinion.


As I believe I mentioned previously this group voted to add a second weekly meeting.  All well and good if one wished to attend both meetings, which One did not.  The group conscience swept me aside like Genghis Khan and his Mongol Horde laying waste to Asia Minor in the 13th century.  I responded appropriately: I was pissed and I stormed out.  I had agreed to be the secretary of this particular meeting so I resigned my position, with Attitude.  I didn't go to the meeting the following week, choosing instead to leave a tersely worded resignation on the top of the 12 Step books, like a little child.  


"What a chickenshit," you might be saying, and you might be right.  I will say that I was Pissed with a capital P and decided a gutless letter would be better than returning to the meeting while nursing so active a grudge.


The point is that I went back to the meeting this week.  It was fine.  I liked the meeting and I liked the people which is why I started going to the meeting in the first place.  I enjoyed myself.


It's not the resentments, which are inevitable.  It's how deeply I nurse them.

Next in Line!

Next:  The one immediately following.


I keep a journal so that I can jot down important ideas and thoughts as they come to me during the course of my day.  I re-read it from time to time and invariably think: "Huh.  I didn't pay attention to any of the advice I gave myself."  This is why I try not to give advice to other people.  I can't be bothered to even take any of my own advice.  Good, solid advice by someone who is intimately familiar with all of my assets and defects and the daily circumstances of my life, and still I ignore it.


"Who does that bastard think he is, telling me what to do with his I-know-better-than-you arrogant attitude?  Like he's done such a great job of running his own life," I say to myself, in a loud voice, unaware that this is the kind of stuff that gets people locked up in state run insane asylums.   Mental health professionals look askance at people walking around, arguing vociferously despite the absence of any other actual living people.  It indicates some internal conflict that needs to be addressed.


Sometimes it dawns on me that I'm the one giving myself advice and then not following it.  This fact makes it a lot more palatable when someone I give advice to doesn't pay any attention to me. The best advice I have ever dispensed, and I dispense it frequently, is don't give anyone any advice.


Anyway, I took a look back through the past year's Thoughts for the Day to see if anything important popped out.  It was a momentous year with much change that required a lot of momentous decisions.  What struck me was the brilliance of the philosophy "Do The Next Right Thing."  Sometimes we say "Do What's In Front Of You," which is even simpler and more brilliant.


SuperK and I spent a lot of time doing things and making choices without a clear knowledge of where they would lead us or whether they were the "right" decisions to make.  I was amused to see how many times we started a process, sure it would lead to a particular conclusion, only to be disappointed.  But when we kept slogging away we invariably popped out into a better, or more appropriate, at least, place.  Some of these things were decisions on matters that we very much wanted to be decided.  When the action didn't leave to an outcome which concluded the matter, we were disappointed or depressed.


Yet, here I sit today in a pretty good place.  I took the steps.  I took the actions.  I got lots of advice and I flew blind much of the time.  It can be frustrating and exhilarating all at the same time.

The New Guy

I had a new guy ask me to be his sponsor a while back for reasons that are opaque to me.  Why anyone would voluntarily seek advice from me about anything when I give it so freely unbidden is beyond my capacity to comprehend. 


Anyway, he really hasn't been making much of an effort to pick up the 1000 lb phone.  This is understandable.  I considered the phone to be some kind of inanimate serpent when I was getting sober, something that could only deliver bad news from bill collectors, legal type people, pissed friends and family members, and the like.  A ringing phone was not something that would normally cause my spirits to soar.  It was certainly not something I would use to initiate contact with anyone else.  Not very many people were glad to hear from me and those who were weren't people that I was glad to talk to.


I suggested to the new guy that he call me every few days, and not because he's all that interesting to talk to, in the way of self-absorbed new people who think their very ordinary problems are way more significant and unfair than they really are.  But I made this suggestion so that he could get into the habit of calling regularly because when something really troubling comes up, as it invariably will,  I don't want him to be frozen with the fear that we're all familiar with.  In my early days I never called anyone because I never wanted to "bother" anyone, unaware that my presence was keeping several hundred people sober.


"God, I never want to be like that again," they were probably thinking.


Nothing really changed in the weeks after I made my suggestion, which is also not surprising.  None of us had check marks in the "Takes Instruction Well" box on our kindergarten report cards.  He is waiting to get his driver's license reinstated so I gave him a ride home from the meeting a few days ago.  It was about a 15 minute drive so we had time to have a nice talk about nothing in particular.


When I got home there was a message from this guy on my answering machine.  Nothing for 6 weeks then a call immediately after getting out of my car.  I wonder if he would have given himself credit for calling me while we were driving home.


"Excuse me," he would have whispered, sotto voce, putting his hand over the mouthpiece of his phone.  "I have to take this.  It's my sponsor.  He's a real asshole."


I don't think he gets it yet.

Deo Gratias

I also went to church with my mother when I was in town.  Twice, doubling my total church attendance over the last 2 or 3 years.  I didn't go because I wanted to go - and god knows it's all about me, a fact clearly authorized in one of the additional Steps only accessible to superior recovery guys like me, kind of like the keys to the executive washroom, except for recovery  - I went because I knew it would make my mother happy and god knows I can put in a little effort making that poor woman happy.


It's never as bad as I remember it being.  It is somewhat annoying and it's definitely boring, but it's not an overwhelming OzzFest of negativity.  The people are mostly pleasant and there's a lot of off-key singing, which I find amusing, and the pastor guy reads some Bible passages, which are OK for the most part, at least those from the New Testament.  The Old Testament can get a little threatening and violent with all of the smiting by a just god and everything.  The Bible seems like a pretty cool book; it's the interpretation of the Bible by guys who seem to have some reading comprehension problems that really bugs me.  So I mostly enjoy the scripture readings.  They could read from just about any religious book and I'd be OK with it.  All of the books of the major religions sound more or less the same when you strip away all of the outside commentary about how great OUR particular book is.


There is this one thing called "The sharing of the peace" that happens before the actual preachy part starts.  I'm not a big fan of this part.  You have to shake hands with your immediate pew mates - I was glad to see that they've put cushions on the unforgiving wood pews because I don't have too much padding back there, if you know what I mean - and say "The peace of the lord be with you," which seems kind of staged.  I tried to slip in something novel like "Led Zeppelin rules" or "double or nothing, please" but I lost my nerve at the last minute.


During the sermon I pretty much zone out.  I enjoy the sermon the best when I don't listen to it.  I'm practiced at not listening when other people are talking to me so this isn't an onerous chore.  Before I drifted off one of the days I heard the preacher guy throw some gasoline on the fire as far as some popular liberal social policies are concerned.  I didn't like this much, believing it isn't why we come to church, so I drifted off more quickly than normal.  More deeply as well.


But a short time later this Bible verse came up: "There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostle's feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need."  This sounds like socialism which is what happens when you start out as a liberal and then swerve sharply to the far left.  And there was a disclaimer in the church bulletin that read: "We hold the Holy Bible to be the inerrant word of God."  It wouldn't appear to me that there's any wiggle room that would help you avoid selling all of your shit and passing it out on the street to bums like me.


Inerrant:  Not erring; making no mistakes; infallible.


It looked to me like the preacher guy was carefully covering all of his bases, making sure that he offended everyone irregardless of their political persuasion.


Here are a few quotes that I found confusing during the course of the service:
"I will sing to the lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea."  This was closely followed by something about " the stormy side of God's wrath."  I'm assuming that this is the side God exhibited when he did the horse and rider tossing.  I'm assuming he didn't use the sunny side of his wrath should such a side exist, which I find unlikely and contradictory.  It's unclear to me who he tossed into the sea, and for what reason.  Maybe he doesn't like horses so much that he was willing to sacrifice a couple of people to take 'em out.


There was a hymn called "Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds."  I don't know what that means.  One of the verses started with the line "Mighty Victim from the sky!"  I don't know what that means, either.


What really burned me up was a short section called The Children's Message.  All of the little kids come to the front of the church, the preacher guy sits down on his haunches with them, and delivers a little homily while ALL OF THE ADULTS HAVE TO WATCH.  When I was a kid we got dressed up and went to Sunday School and THEN to church.  There were no Children's Message loopholes for us to exploit.  Now not only do the kids avoid Sunday School they extend the church service for the adults.  This is the definition of Adding Insult To Injury.


I still have 8+ months to Christmas.  I'm safe for a while.

Easter Dinner

I had Easter dinner at my sister’s last weekend, celebrating a weird amalgam of ancient pagan fertility ritual and relatively modern Christianity. 

“Happy Easter!” a woman walking a dog chirped cheerily at me as I hiked in the woods before heading off to dinner.

“I’m Jewish,” I said, in an overly loud voice, matching her cheery good will with an excess of my own, while still letting a little barely contained malevolence leak through.

I followed my long walk on a perfect spring day with a killer nap and a huge cup of coffee.  I was in a good mood, rested and primed for any conflict that might come my way, as I entered my sister’s house for the family extravaganza.  My sister is brazenly pursuing the almighty dollar and managed to work in how much her house was worth in the first 15 minutes of my visit, adding a sweet twenty-five percent increase to the amount they paid for it just a year ago.  I should be so lucky with my own property appreciation, especially in an era of declining real estate prices. She also managed to work in the conversation that my brother in law really isn’t into “things.”  I looked around the huge house and the three cars in the driveway and wondered about her definition of “things.” 

This is what we in the business of immature and self-centered behavior call a “trigger,” which translated roughly means “something that really pisses me off for no good reason.”  It didn’t have that effect this time although I carefully noted the egregious transgression for future use.  If I feel like working up a good bitching fit I want to make sure I have a large cache of transgressions to access.  Why someone else’s attitudes about money would have anything whatsoever to do with me is a mystery I’ll have to delve into at some future date. 

Things:  A tangible object, as distinguished from a concept, quality, etc.; as the book is a thing; it's color is a quality.

To be honest with you, instead of lying like I normally do, the whole day was fine.  My sister is a good person and so is my brother-in-law, which is what I needed to concentrate on, instead of her irrelevant money stories.  My nieces are normal and happy.  My sister simply likes money more than I do, which works out pretty well for me since I so enjoy judging other people.  Almost as much as I enjoy feeling superior to them.  I like being self-righteous, too.  And I have many other impressive qualities that I don't have time to go into today.

But I do it better than you – whatever “it” is – unless your values and morals are as high as mine, which is beyond impossible.

It:  An object of indefinite sense in certain idiomatic expressions: as, to lord it over someone.

Let the great world spin, I thought.

My sister entertains a lot.  Fancy entertaining with decorations and trendy hor dourves  and people showing up fashionably late, dressed  carelessly in expensive clothes that they are dying to tell you how much they paid for but hope you ask them first which you don’t do because you’re hoping they ask you about your clothes, which they never do, the bitches.  I think that family functions are more of an obligatory burden for her, a task she feels compelled to undertake but derives very little pleasure from, unless someone asks her how much she paid for something.  I quit hosting them long ago because the No Alcohol In My House regulation quashed the hilarity but good and ushered people out the door so fast it made my head spin.  Plus, I didn’t enjoy the whole atmosphere of artificial camaraderie so my sour mood probably didn’t add to the hilarity, either.

One holiday dinner at my sister’s I emphasized that I’d be happy to help out any way I could since she always hosted the meals.

“You want to help out?” she said, a little too quickly, as if she had thought this through and was debating whether to bring it up or not.  “Write me a check for twenty five bucks.”

I was stunned into silence, which is not easy to do.  I had no snappy comeback.  I sent her the check.  She cashed it without comment.  I thought of this, chuckling at the lack of food at dinner.  My elderly parents split a dinner roll and I had a light meal when I got home that night.  I bet this doesn’t happen when she does her fancy entertaining with her hip and beautiful suburb-mates.

I had a good time on Easter.  Can you imagine if it was a bad time?

Maybe a 2500 mile buffer zone is about right.