I have spent enough time on Step 1 - addressing my obsession with my health and well-being which has opened up a Pandora's Box type scenario vis-a-vis my compulsive exercising which unfortunately opened my eyes to an on-going, never-changing nightmare scenario that is my caffeine and sugar addiction - so I'm moving on to Step 2. I don't mean to suggest that I've actually gotten any relief on these things, an indication that I've worked Step 1 successfully, but - as you can see - I'm afraid if I linger any longer that I'm going to find more shit to not work on. I can only fail at three things at a time. Any more than that and I feel like a failure.
I like that our Steps are filled with vague verbs. We make decisions and become willing and humbly ask and come to believe. I don't think that I would have been all-in if there were a lot of hard, declarative words. There's a lot of slop room in The Steps. It's a Program for people who half-ass things.
Can you imagine Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments if god knew he had to gear things to alcoholics?
1. It's good to admit that it's not cool to worship any other gods.
2. Try not to make any idols; if you do decide to make some idols try not to make too many.
3. Make a decision to curse less. Trend obscene and scatological if you can't resist, and not when there are any kids around. You know, god damning someone is heavy stuff. It would be better to just call them a shithead.
4. It would be great if you could remember the Sabbath. It's a pretty important day - in fact, it's my day dedicated to . . . you know . . . worshiping me. With all your heart and soul and mind. Go to church 2/3rds of the time, if you can. At least show up on Easter and Christmas, for christ's sake.
5. Be entirely ready to listen when your mother and father speak.
6. You're still killing people? Really? Are you kidding me? Do I really have to suggest that you stop killing other people?
And so on and so forth with the last four . . .
Our real Step 2 - Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity - takes some time to detail the different ways that we convince ourselves that we can't believe in a higher power. The four categories, roughly speaking are: those of an agnostic and/or atheistic bent; the believer who has lost his faith; the skeptic who can only see the hypocrisy in religion while completely ignoring the good found therein; and the guy who is just too smart to have to find a power greater than himself.
Well, three out of four for me. I'm a good alcoholic - I do everything to excess.
Defy: To refuse to obey; to not conform to or follow a pattern, set of rules, or expectations.
"As psychiatrists have often observed, defiance is the outstanding characteristic of many an alcoholic." There's also something about a greedy child making an impossible list for Santa Claus. It's never a good thing when Santa Claus is referenced in a discussion about my behavior.
After I read Step 2 this morning I felt better about my first Step work. It's a kind and vague Step, conceding powerlessness and unmanageability. None of us were immediately freed from all thoughts of drinking or able to see every area in our lives hounded by a lack of control. We did our best with it, lingered a bit, then moved on.
Here's a promise: ". . . we saw them meet and transcend their other pains and trials. We saw them calmly accept impossible situation, seeking neither to run or recriminate. This was not only faith; it was faith that worked under all conditions.
Monday, April 30, 2018
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Pain! Dissatisfaction!! Resentment!!!
Complain: To express feelings of pain (Check!), dissatisfaction (Check!!), or resentment (Check!! God, yes, Check!!).
I never heard Kenner complain about anything . . . that wasn't associated with the Government, which he complained about incessantly. He just wouldn't do it. One time he was volunteering with Habitat for Humanity when the upper support of the stairs leading to the basement - the stairs that he was descending suspended above a concrete floor - broke. Ken road the beast to the ground, landing on his back on the now vertical edge of the stair. After it fell ten feet or so, and stopped abruptly on the concrete. He was probably 70 years old at that point.
Little Westside Jonny and I went to see him in the hospital that evening, and we left feeling better than when we arrived. Ken was, admittedly, a little juiced on some kind of sedative, but he was as positive and funny as ever. He eventually started laughing and then threw us out of the room. I would have seized on that tragedy to complain for like ten years. We couldn't get ten minutes out of Ken.
This was the jist of my communication with him. No matter how bad it got - or how bad I made it sound, a lot more common - Ken always brought things around to the solution, and dwelling on the negative did not fit his definition of a solution. It's not as if he was delusional, either, about difficulties - just balanced. I have a new sponsor now that I'm in touch with every week - actually the guy that helped me kick things off 31 years ago - and I have a good relationship with him, a close bond, but it's never going to be the same as it was with someone who walked the walk with me for close to 25 years.
I still miss talking to him three years after his death. We didn't have much of a social relationship until the very end when I came home to visit but it was a continuous, on-going one. Ken listened well. He talked some but he listened a lot more. One connection we had over the years was at a twice yearly men's recovery retreat that we both attended. These retreats were quiet affairs - there was a retreat master, usually a recovering Jesuit priest, who gave short talks, lots of meetings, meals together at long tables, plenty of time for walks on the peaceful grounds, and opportunities to sit and write or read or just reflect. Often we'd sit together between presentations - talk a bit, maybe, but often just sit.
I'm sure he's up in heaven telling god how fucked up the federal government is.
I never heard Kenner complain about anything . . . that wasn't associated with the Government, which he complained about incessantly. He just wouldn't do it. One time he was volunteering with Habitat for Humanity when the upper support of the stairs leading to the basement - the stairs that he was descending suspended above a concrete floor - broke. Ken road the beast to the ground, landing on his back on the now vertical edge of the stair. After it fell ten feet or so, and stopped abruptly on the concrete. He was probably 70 years old at that point.
Little Westside Jonny and I went to see him in the hospital that evening, and we left feeling better than when we arrived. Ken was, admittedly, a little juiced on some kind of sedative, but he was as positive and funny as ever. He eventually started laughing and then threw us out of the room. I would have seized on that tragedy to complain for like ten years. We couldn't get ten minutes out of Ken.
This was the jist of my communication with him. No matter how bad it got - or how bad I made it sound, a lot more common - Ken always brought things around to the solution, and dwelling on the negative did not fit his definition of a solution. It's not as if he was delusional, either, about difficulties - just balanced. I have a new sponsor now that I'm in touch with every week - actually the guy that helped me kick things off 31 years ago - and I have a good relationship with him, a close bond, but it's never going to be the same as it was with someone who walked the walk with me for close to 25 years.
I still miss talking to him three years after his death. We didn't have much of a social relationship until the very end when I came home to visit but it was a continuous, on-going one. Ken listened well. He talked some but he listened a lot more. One connection we had over the years was at a twice yearly men's recovery retreat that we both attended. These retreats were quiet affairs - there was a retreat master, usually a recovering Jesuit priest, who gave short talks, lots of meetings, meals together at long tables, plenty of time for walks on the peaceful grounds, and opportunities to sit and write or read or just reflect. Often we'd sit together between presentations - talk a bit, maybe, but often just sit.
I'm sure he's up in heaven telling god how fucked up the federal government is.
Posted, Without Comment
Dire: Warning of dire consequences; ill-boding; portentous.
My capacity to project disaster is boundless. There is no boundary, in other words, and I do not have to look that one up. The closest analogy I came come up is our universe: limitless and always expanding at the speed of one megaparsec (real word, dudes.)
My capacity to project disaster is boundless. There is no boundary, in other words, and I do not have to look that one up. The closest analogy I came come up is our universe: limitless and always expanding at the speed of one megaparsec (real word, dudes.)
Friday, April 27, 2018
Little Johnny On The Loose
"We are people who wouldn't ordinarily mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after shipwreck when a feeling of camaraderie, democracy, and joyousness pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain's table." BB PP 17
Kenner and I got off to a bit of a rocky start in the sponsor-sponsee relationship. I always admired his Program and enjoyed what he said in meetings while he was actually in the . . . you know . . . meeting room, but once we stepped outside things tended to get a little contentious if by "a little" you mean "goddam." Without spelling out where either of us stood on political, moral, religious, social issues - these are complex matters with a lot of nuance and few clear absolutes - we started to bicker. It was bad enough to have an argument when we would stumble unawares into a minefield but it became evident that one of us - the protagonist varied from day to day - often slipped an incendiary comment into the conversation that was only meant to irritate the other, and off we would go.
I'd like to say that this behavior was short-lived. I'd like to say a lot of things that make me look good. We clearly enjoyed talking with each other about so many things that I could feel a sense of unease beginning to set in whenever we'd start to argue about outside issues, one of us casting the baited hook and the other chomping down, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. At some point the antagonist du jour began to have trouble getting a nibble. The conversation would grind down and there'd be a short silence before one of us would start a new, less contentious thread.
Thus began a relationship of many years where we avoided those topics where our opinions were fixed and irreversible. What was the point? we seemed to be asking, other than to argue with someone whose opinion was set in concrete. I knew that I disagreed with him on some issues but decided that it was for the best to concentrate on the many areas where we shared a common connection. I learned from this dynamic how to have a deep and lasting relationship with someone who was not at all like me. I learned what we mean when we say: "Look for the similarities, not the differences."
I've always said that the four most important relationships in the world to me where my mom and dad; my lovely, irreplaceable wife; and The Kenner. He was more of a father-figure to me in many ways than my own father, and I don't say this to disrespect my dad, who was doing the best he could with the tools he had. Rather I mean that I got to share my life in a deep and profound way with Ken than I couldn't with dad. This is The Program, this is what we get when we're striding along with other men and women on a similar spiritual quest.
"Today in Little Johnny's classroom the teacher asked each child to tell the class what their father did for a living and then to spell the trade or job. The first child's dad was a cook, the second a doctor, and so forth and so on.
"Shirtmaker," said one little girl. "S-H-I-T-M-A-K-E-R."
"No, Little Suzie," said the teacher. "Could you please try again?"
"S-H-I-T-M-A-K-E-R," spelled Suzie.
The teacher thanked Little Suzie and said that she would come back to her in a minute. Little Johnny was next.
"My dad's a bookie," he said. "And I'll give you 3 to 1 that Suzie spells shitmaker again."
We were in a restaurant when Little Westside Jonny told this joke and we both swear that Kenner got up and pounded on the table in the booth next to ours he was laughing so hard.
Kenner and I got off to a bit of a rocky start in the sponsor-sponsee relationship. I always admired his Program and enjoyed what he said in meetings while he was actually in the . . . you know . . . meeting room, but once we stepped outside things tended to get a little contentious if by "a little" you mean "goddam." Without spelling out where either of us stood on political, moral, religious, social issues - these are complex matters with a lot of nuance and few clear absolutes - we started to bicker. It was bad enough to have an argument when we would stumble unawares into a minefield but it became evident that one of us - the protagonist varied from day to day - often slipped an incendiary comment into the conversation that was only meant to irritate the other, and off we would go.
I'd like to say that this behavior was short-lived. I'd like to say a lot of things that make me look good. We clearly enjoyed talking with each other about so many things that I could feel a sense of unease beginning to set in whenever we'd start to argue about outside issues, one of us casting the baited hook and the other chomping down, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. At some point the antagonist du jour began to have trouble getting a nibble. The conversation would grind down and there'd be a short silence before one of us would start a new, less contentious thread.
Thus began a relationship of many years where we avoided those topics where our opinions were fixed and irreversible. What was the point? we seemed to be asking, other than to argue with someone whose opinion was set in concrete. I knew that I disagreed with him on some issues but decided that it was for the best to concentrate on the many areas where we shared a common connection. I learned from this dynamic how to have a deep and lasting relationship with someone who was not at all like me. I learned what we mean when we say: "Look for the similarities, not the differences."
I've always said that the four most important relationships in the world to me where my mom and dad; my lovely, irreplaceable wife; and The Kenner. He was more of a father-figure to me in many ways than my own father, and I don't say this to disrespect my dad, who was doing the best he could with the tools he had. Rather I mean that I got to share my life in a deep and profound way with Ken than I couldn't with dad. This is The Program, this is what we get when we're striding along with other men and women on a similar spiritual quest.
"Today in Little Johnny's classroom the teacher asked each child to tell the class what their father did for a living and then to spell the trade or job. The first child's dad was a cook, the second a doctor, and so forth and so on.
"Shirtmaker," said one little girl. "S-H-I-T-M-A-K-E-R."
"No, Little Suzie," said the teacher. "Could you please try again?"
"S-H-I-T-M-A-K-E-R," spelled Suzie.
The teacher thanked Little Suzie and said that she would come back to her in a minute. Little Johnny was next.
"My dad's a bookie," he said. "And I'll give you 3 to 1 that Suzie spells shitmaker again."
We were in a restaurant when Little Westside Jonny told this joke and we both swear that Kenner got up and pounded on the table in the booth next to ours he was laughing so hard.
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Principles Before Personalities
Principle: A fundamental assumption or guiding belief.
I'm interested in seeing how writing The Kenner Tapes work out. So far my recollections about the cat were a big hit; dad played out about as I expected; and mom was a huge, surprising, slap-in-the-face train-wreck. Where, o where, will the Kenner fall?
Ken had three basic responses to any issue I brought up so I knew before I called that I was going to have to figure out into which category my current pressing problem fell. Twenty five years of phone calls and he could solve anything with these responses. He didn't practice a complicated Program and he didn't have a complicated spiritual life.
1. This, too, shall pass.
I really liked this piece of advice when I was not getting my way; not so much when I was happy with the results.
2. Principles before personalities.
I heard this one a lot, befitting a person with 10 index fingers that I used to point out the flaws in other people, places, or things. Ken never, ever, ever let me talk about anyone else unless I was being positive. He simply wouldn't let me do it and I never, ever, ever heard him speak poorly of another person. He was like mom in that regard: say something nice or take it outside.
After agreeing with him on this point for like five years I finally had to say: "What does that mean exactly, anyway?" I was too embarrassed to admit that I was clueless about the meaning of a key phrase in Tradition Twelve.
In someone else's words: "What does 'principles before personalities" really mean? It means we practice honesty, humility, compassion, tolerance, and patience with everyone, whether we like them or not. Putting principles before personalities teaches us to treat everyone equally."
3. I can't remember what the third thing was.
Ken H: "Take two Steps and call me in the morning."
One time I was struggling with an issue so I rang up my sponsor. After explaining the situation in great detail I asked Ken what he thought I should do. He started to laugh.
"Oh, no, you don't," he said. "If it doesn't work out I don't want to hear about it."
I learned that advice is like a person's blowhole - everybody has one. I learned that even if someone asks my advice they still don't want my advice. They're going to do whatever they want to do anyway. If someone has a problem all I can do is help them consider the matter from a lot different angles, the possibility being that they might find a new way of thinking about the issue. I can also share what I did and how it worked out for me. Or not. I'm not in the advice business anymore - I barely know what I should do. I barely know where my wallet is most of the time and I'm going to give you advice on how to live your life? I don't think so. If you like what I did give it a shot; if you want to try something else give it a shot. Give it all a shot. Blast away.
The other thing I learned from Kenner was the importance of Rule #62: Don't take yourself so damn seriously. He laughed a lot and he laughed at himself the most. He did not, however, laugh about The Government, but more about that later.
He was a devout lifelong Catholic and proud of his faith. I believe that - although we were both skeptical for the longest while - we came to appreciate each other's brand of spirituality. I believe that we are both spiritual men but that we arrived at our spirituality by taking very different paths. I was the lapsed Lutheran with a sharp distrust of anything that smacked of rules or dogma or bestowed authority on an average man. He loved the tradition and dogma and the rules in his church - it was clean and clear-cut to him, unlike my free-form, fill-in-the-blanks, whatever-goes type of faith.
The last time I visited him I arrived in the wee hours of Sunday morning. He got up when I let myself in the house and had a hearty laugh at my appearance for no apparent reason. I told him I wanted to go to Mass with him the next day.
"Really?" he said, perplexed. "Okay." I had not attended a Mass in many years and - of course - I enjoyed it. Kenner had a ton of friends there - he was clearly loved - and it was a relaxed, peaceful environment, very casual. I didn't hear anything that I found objectionable although I confess to not paying attention to much other than the Bible readings. We drove to a local breakfast spot and broke the fast afterwards.
That was the last time I saw him alive. I talked to him dozens of times after that but never put eyes on him again.
So there appears to be a long tradition of jokes in Catholicism ascribed to a scamp called Little Johnny. The jokes are pretty silly but Ken would roar like a third grader every time we told one and he was a lawyer, for chrissake. LWSJ and I tried to get one in every time we saw him. He was the show. The joke wasn't the show.
"One day the teacher in Little Johnny's class was giving each child a word that she asked them to use in a sentence. She would toss out the word 'lovely,' for example, and a student would say: "That's a lovely flower."
When Little Johnny's turn came she asked him to use the word 'beautiful.' She was careful to pick words for LJ that he couldn't run amok with.
LJ thought for a minute: "OK. Last night my sister came home and told my dad that she was pregnant."
"Beautiful, just beautiful," my dad said. "That's fucking beautiful."
I'm interested in seeing how writing The Kenner Tapes work out. So far my recollections about the cat were a big hit; dad played out about as I expected; and mom was a huge, surprising, slap-in-the-face train-wreck. Where, o where, will the Kenner fall?
Ken had three basic responses to any issue I brought up so I knew before I called that I was going to have to figure out into which category my current pressing problem fell. Twenty five years of phone calls and he could solve anything with these responses. He didn't practice a complicated Program and he didn't have a complicated spiritual life.
1. This, too, shall pass.
I really liked this piece of advice when I was not getting my way; not so much when I was happy with the results.
2. Principles before personalities.
I heard this one a lot, befitting a person with 10 index fingers that I used to point out the flaws in other people, places, or things. Ken never, ever, ever let me talk about anyone else unless I was being positive. He simply wouldn't let me do it and I never, ever, ever heard him speak poorly of another person. He was like mom in that regard: say something nice or take it outside.
After agreeing with him on this point for like five years I finally had to say: "What does that mean exactly, anyway?" I was too embarrassed to admit that I was clueless about the meaning of a key phrase in Tradition Twelve.
In someone else's words: "What does 'principles before personalities" really mean? It means we practice honesty, humility, compassion, tolerance, and patience with everyone, whether we like them or not. Putting principles before personalities teaches us to treat everyone equally."
3. I can't remember what the third thing was.
Ken H: "Take two Steps and call me in the morning."
One time I was struggling with an issue so I rang up my sponsor. After explaining the situation in great detail I asked Ken what he thought I should do. He started to laugh.
"Oh, no, you don't," he said. "If it doesn't work out I don't want to hear about it."
I learned that advice is like a person's blowhole - everybody has one. I learned that even if someone asks my advice they still don't want my advice. They're going to do whatever they want to do anyway. If someone has a problem all I can do is help them consider the matter from a lot different angles, the possibility being that they might find a new way of thinking about the issue. I can also share what I did and how it worked out for me. Or not. I'm not in the advice business anymore - I barely know what I should do. I barely know where my wallet is most of the time and I'm going to give you advice on how to live your life? I don't think so. If you like what I did give it a shot; if you want to try something else give it a shot. Give it all a shot. Blast away.
The other thing I learned from Kenner was the importance of Rule #62: Don't take yourself so damn seriously. He laughed a lot and he laughed at himself the most. He did not, however, laugh about The Government, but more about that later.
He was a devout lifelong Catholic and proud of his faith. I believe that - although we were both skeptical for the longest while - we came to appreciate each other's brand of spirituality. I believe that we are both spiritual men but that we arrived at our spirituality by taking very different paths. I was the lapsed Lutheran with a sharp distrust of anything that smacked of rules or dogma or bestowed authority on an average man. He loved the tradition and dogma and the rules in his church - it was clean and clear-cut to him, unlike my free-form, fill-in-the-blanks, whatever-goes type of faith.
The last time I visited him I arrived in the wee hours of Sunday morning. He got up when I let myself in the house and had a hearty laugh at my appearance for no apparent reason. I told him I wanted to go to Mass with him the next day.
"Really?" he said, perplexed. "Okay." I had not attended a Mass in many years and - of course - I enjoyed it. Kenner had a ton of friends there - he was clearly loved - and it was a relaxed, peaceful environment, very casual. I didn't hear anything that I found objectionable although I confess to not paying attention to much other than the Bible readings. We drove to a local breakfast spot and broke the fast afterwards.
That was the last time I saw him alive. I talked to him dozens of times after that but never put eyes on him again.
So there appears to be a long tradition of jokes in Catholicism ascribed to a scamp called Little Johnny. The jokes are pretty silly but Ken would roar like a third grader every time we told one and he was a lawyer, for chrissake. LWSJ and I tried to get one in every time we saw him. He was the show. The joke wasn't the show.
"One day the teacher in Little Johnny's class was giving each child a word that she asked them to use in a sentence. She would toss out the word 'lovely,' for example, and a student would say: "That's a lovely flower."
When Little Johnny's turn came she asked him to use the word 'beautiful.' She was careful to pick words for LJ that he couldn't run amok with.
LJ thought for a minute: "OK. Last night my sister came home and told my dad that she was pregnant."
"Beautiful, just beautiful," my dad said. "That's fucking beautiful."
Wednesday, April 25, 2018
Lying Seaweed
Lie: To give false information intentionally with intent to deceive; to convey a false image or impression.
I spent many years perfecting my ability to leave other people with an incorrect version of the facts, of reality itself, all while carefully avoiding the use of words that were untrue. My view was this: if I could lie without making provably false statements then I was off the hook. It didn't matter to me if I led you to believe something that wasn't true as long as I could say I didn't specifically say untrue things. I'm fucking exhausted just writing about this tortuous process so you can imagine how awful it was to have to live with myself after I convinced someone that something was true which was - in fact - not true. I was proud of this ability. It was a mark of my cleverness to shunt someone off onto a trail of false facts without getting caught.
Let's not mince words: I like to lie; I'm good at it; and I have a deeply innate ability to do it. I'm sure I could beat a lie detector machine. I'm sure the needle would exhibit nary a flicker.
Costanza: "Remember - it's not a lie if you don't believe it."
I had lunch today with a guy who lives in my mobile home park. He's an OK guy although I would have not gone out to lunch with him if I could have figured out a way to do it without being a total dick, which I could not figure out how to do. I thought about lying but decided against it. I didn't think he would believe I was dying of dysentery and was under federally mandated quarantine.
Guy: "SuperK's golfing Wednesday, right? Maybe we could go out to lunch that day?"
Me: "No."
I used to be a total dick. Now I'm a total dick with a conscience.
At lunch he told this story about smoking a couple of joints in the community clubhouse after the manager had left for the day. A few residents were drinking some beer and playing pool - totally acceptable - and decided to blow some weed. You can't, of course, smoke anything in the clubhouse because of insurance regulations. I don't know why these guys didn't just step outside for a minute. This is California, after all - more people smoke dope here than drink beer. I'm not even sure it's against the law anymore. You're as likely to get offered some pot at a dinner party as you are a mixed drink.
Anyway, like all people who smoke a bunch of dope my guy was stupid enough to leave his utility bill in the pot-drenched room for the manager to find when she came back to lock up later that evening. The next day she called my guy to tell him she found the bill, taking the opportunity to mention that the smell of dope in the pool room almost knocked her down. She didn't accuse him directly but the comment hung in the air, hash-like.
My guy did the evasive dance where he didn't admit to anything while not saying unequivocally: "I didn't smoke dope in that room." He tried to convince me that he had gotten away with something.
I may have mentioned I'm not . . . er . . . crazy about this guy? At the very least I don't care if he doesn't like me.
"So you lied," I said flatly. He laughed and he equivocated, but he was caught and I wasn't letting him off the hook. If you would like to lie I'm OK with that. If you mention, in passing, that you lied I'll let it go. If you tell a long, involved story about lying I'm kind of stuck. What was I going to do? Agree with him? Change the subject? Share a lie of my own?
The thing about trying to live an ethical, moral-ish life is that I can't do that kind of stuff anymore. It's not so much the lying itself - it's the getting caught lying. Lying got me out of a lot of tight spots but getting caught lying provided me with some of my greatest humiliations.
Let me blunt - my greatest motivation for not lying is that I cannot STAND getting caught in the lie. We all know that feeling when someone who has just caught you in a lie is looking at you silently. Really awful, that feeling. I avoid it like the plague.
So my guy, the next time he sees this woman, is going to have live with the knowledge that she almost certainly knows he lied. At the very least she suspects it. So there will be a degree of skepticism whenever he talks to her. There will be an uncomfortable suspicion that maybe the lying is continuing.
The best thing about telling the truth is that you don't have to remember what you said.
I spent many years perfecting my ability to leave other people with an incorrect version of the facts, of reality itself, all while carefully avoiding the use of words that were untrue. My view was this: if I could lie without making provably false statements then I was off the hook. It didn't matter to me if I led you to believe something that wasn't true as long as I could say I didn't specifically say untrue things. I'm fucking exhausted just writing about this tortuous process so you can imagine how awful it was to have to live with myself after I convinced someone that something was true which was - in fact - not true. I was proud of this ability. It was a mark of my cleverness to shunt someone off onto a trail of false facts without getting caught.
Let's not mince words: I like to lie; I'm good at it; and I have a deeply innate ability to do it. I'm sure I could beat a lie detector machine. I'm sure the needle would exhibit nary a flicker.
Costanza: "Remember - it's not a lie if you don't believe it."
I had lunch today with a guy who lives in my mobile home park. He's an OK guy although I would have not gone out to lunch with him if I could have figured out a way to do it without being a total dick, which I could not figure out how to do. I thought about lying but decided against it. I didn't think he would believe I was dying of dysentery and was under federally mandated quarantine.
Guy: "SuperK's golfing Wednesday, right? Maybe we could go out to lunch that day?"
Me: "No."
I used to be a total dick. Now I'm a total dick with a conscience.
At lunch he told this story about smoking a couple of joints in the community clubhouse after the manager had left for the day. A few residents were drinking some beer and playing pool - totally acceptable - and decided to blow some weed. You can't, of course, smoke anything in the clubhouse because of insurance regulations. I don't know why these guys didn't just step outside for a minute. This is California, after all - more people smoke dope here than drink beer. I'm not even sure it's against the law anymore. You're as likely to get offered some pot at a dinner party as you are a mixed drink.
Anyway, like all people who smoke a bunch of dope my guy was stupid enough to leave his utility bill in the pot-drenched room for the manager to find when she came back to lock up later that evening. The next day she called my guy to tell him she found the bill, taking the opportunity to mention that the smell of dope in the pool room almost knocked her down. She didn't accuse him directly but the comment hung in the air, hash-like.
My guy did the evasive dance where he didn't admit to anything while not saying unequivocally: "I didn't smoke dope in that room." He tried to convince me that he had gotten away with something.
I may have mentioned I'm not . . . er . . . crazy about this guy? At the very least I don't care if he doesn't like me.
"So you lied," I said flatly. He laughed and he equivocated, but he was caught and I wasn't letting him off the hook. If you would like to lie I'm OK with that. If you mention, in passing, that you lied I'll let it go. If you tell a long, involved story about lying I'm kind of stuck. What was I going to do? Agree with him? Change the subject? Share a lie of my own?
The thing about trying to live an ethical, moral-ish life is that I can't do that kind of stuff anymore. It's not so much the lying itself - it's the getting caught lying. Lying got me out of a lot of tight spots but getting caught lying provided me with some of my greatest humiliations.
Let me blunt - my greatest motivation for not lying is that I cannot STAND getting caught in the lie. We all know that feeling when someone who has just caught you in a lie is looking at you silently. Really awful, that feeling. I avoid it like the plague.
So my guy, the next time he sees this woman, is going to have live with the knowledge that she almost certainly knows he lied. At the very least she suspects it. So there will be a degree of skepticism whenever he talks to her. There will be an uncomfortable suspicion that maybe the lying is continuing.
The best thing about telling the truth is that you don't have to remember what you said.
The Kenner - The Early Days
Ken H - The Kenner - was my sponsor for about 25 years.
I really should stop writing and post that sentence. I can't improve on that fact - it stands on its own merits.
For a great deal of that time - even after I left The Old City - I talked to him on a weekly basis, more often if I had something going on. At the start I saw him in person at our 12&12 every Friday and I still think that in early sobriety it was important for me to be seen in person. He listened to two of my four 4th Steps, both times meeting me at his house with a cooler of pop and water, some snacks, and a couple of lawn chairs so we could hop in my car and cruise up to a beautiful park near his house. I remember both experiences being pleasant and not at all stressful. Maybe because I was doing some clean-up work on myself instead if the major demolition that is 4th Step, Number One, and maybe it was because he was a kind, dear man and I was comfortable sharing my stuff with him.
Aside: I did my second 4th Step with my first Old City sponsor sitting next to a lake in a housing development that was still under construction. When we went in to the model home to use the bathroom after we were done the agent remarked: "So did you guys solve all the world's problems out there?"
If she only knew.
This was a pretty low-key event, too, although this sponsor was a bit of a know-it-all who made a lot of pretty confident suggestions, always irritating to a pretty confident know-it-all who loathes being suggested to.
My first 4th Step was in Chicago and THAT one was akin to being fed through a wood-chipper that was on fire in the middle of a pool of hydrochloric acid. I'd tell you what it was really like but I don't want to scare the children.
What a minute . . . I thought I was writing about Kenner, not giving a history of my major inventories? Maybe it all ties in: I asked him to be my sponsor when I was still working with the first guy - the irritating confident know-it-all - who was actually a very good sponsor. The problem was that he was a night guy and I'm a day guy so I'd call him with a problem during the day and he'd call back when I was already in bed. I did ask Kenner to be my sponsor before I cut my ties with him. He was a good man and fine with it, and I'm friends with him to this day.
"Great," he said. "I like Kenner. It sounds like a good fit."
Today I'd like to be a big octopus.
I really should stop writing and post that sentence. I can't improve on that fact - it stands on its own merits.
For a great deal of that time - even after I left The Old City - I talked to him on a weekly basis, more often if I had something going on. At the start I saw him in person at our 12&12 every Friday and I still think that in early sobriety it was important for me to be seen in person. He listened to two of my four 4th Steps, both times meeting me at his house with a cooler of pop and water, some snacks, and a couple of lawn chairs so we could hop in my car and cruise up to a beautiful park near his house. I remember both experiences being pleasant and not at all stressful. Maybe because I was doing some clean-up work on myself instead if the major demolition that is 4th Step, Number One, and maybe it was because he was a kind, dear man and I was comfortable sharing my stuff with him.
Aside: I did my second 4th Step with my first Old City sponsor sitting next to a lake in a housing development that was still under construction. When we went in to the model home to use the bathroom after we were done the agent remarked: "So did you guys solve all the world's problems out there?"
If she only knew.
This was a pretty low-key event, too, although this sponsor was a bit of a know-it-all who made a lot of pretty confident suggestions, always irritating to a pretty confident know-it-all who loathes being suggested to.
My first 4th Step was in Chicago and THAT one was akin to being fed through a wood-chipper that was on fire in the middle of a pool of hydrochloric acid. I'd tell you what it was really like but I don't want to scare the children.
What a minute . . . I thought I was writing about Kenner, not giving a history of my major inventories? Maybe it all ties in: I asked him to be my sponsor when I was still working with the first guy - the irritating confident know-it-all - who was actually a very good sponsor. The problem was that he was a night guy and I'm a day guy so I'd call him with a problem during the day and he'd call back when I was already in bed. I did ask Kenner to be my sponsor before I cut my ties with him. He was a good man and fine with it, and I'm friends with him to this day.
"Great," he said. "I like Kenner. It sounds like a good fit."
Today I'd like to be a big octopus.
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