Meditate, Positively

"He is told that the chair and the floor are holding him up and that there is no need for him to make any effort whatsoever.  He need not even keep perfectly quiet if it is difficult for him to do so.  If other ideas that those he is being given enter his mind, he is warned not to try to resist them but to let them come into his field of thought and then quietly pass out again."

"The negative thoughts must be stopped, but the subject must not be repressed or even dropped from consciousness until it has been pursued to its logical conclusion with as many positive thoughts as possible.

Negative thoughts given the chance, arise all too swiftly.  For emphasis I repeat: it is of supreme importance that positive thinking be employed whenever the subject comes up . . . . "

"If other ideas than those he is being given enter his mind, he is warned not to try to resist them but to let them come into his field of thought and then quietly pass out of it again."

Lots of good stuff here on meditation and psychological tricks and techniques so that your thinking won't be so . . . well . . . fucked up.  These passages are not from our founders and they are not from any religious or spiritual organization.  Just goes to show you that there is a lot of good stuff out there.  We have some of the answers for some of the people but that's about it.

Thanks for the Call Yesterday

The telephone!  I can't tell you how important the telephone was for me when I was getting sober.  In fact, for most of my sobriety it has been very important.  Like most alcoholics I lived an isolated life emotionally, keeping things inside, thinking about them and thinking and thinking and thinking.  So it really helped to be able to talk to someone every day.  And not just at meetings, as important as they are to me, but with one person for a more extended period of time.  It's harder to bullshit someone when you talk one-on-one for 15 minutes or so.  I can do it, no doubt, but it's harder.  I have also learned not to put too much significance on every call.  I don't have to have some big issue to discuss when I picked up the phone.  Often I'll shoot the shit with someone for a bit and he'll ask: "So everything going OK?" and if it was, we'd ring off.  The point was that when I needed to talk to someone I had that muscle memory of picking up the phone.

This is not the case so much any more.  People don't generally use the phone to . . . you know . . . talk to people, preferring texting where one can hide behind bland, vague words decorated with clever little emojis.  Oh, well, so be it.  We all get older, right?  I don't ever want to be one of those old guys who is constantly telling everyone how much better it was in the day.  "When I was getting sober we didn't have coffee - we just took a mouthful of Sanka crystals and we chewed on those, and we liked it, goddammit."  That kind of stuff.

A few years ago a colleague asked me to be his sponsor and then promptly, with alacrity, never called me, not once, not ever.  I rang him up a couple of times - to grease the lines of communication - but he didn't ring me back, not once, not ever.  As an ex-salesman who did not receive return phone calls like 47 million times this is one of the things I DO NOT tolerate in The Program.  I'm not mad about it - I get it why millions of people wouldn't want to talk to me - but I don't put up with it.  I delete the contact from my phone and I move on, with absolutely no feelings of ill will.  If you don't want to talk to me on the phone I absolutely respect that.

I received a surprising call from him a few weeks ago.  When we spoke I could tell he had a lot of things going on that were upsetting - a rapidly accelerating engagement, health issues, and the like.  So I decided that - since he really seemed to need to talk - that I'd pick up the phone and try to reignite the relationship.  I called and he didn't call back.  D'oh!  I felt a little like Charlie Brown whiffing on the football kick.

The next day he walked past me on the way into the meeting.

"Thanks for the call yesterday," he said, cheerily.

I kept a straight face.  He is under the impression that a phone call is one-sided.  He's 70.  He's not going to change.

Then, today, at the meeting, he raised his hand during a business-related conversation about updating our phone list.

"I just wanted to say that if you call me and don't leave your name, then I'm not calling back," he proclaimed.  

I almost laughed out loud.  I almost pointed out that he isn't going to call you back if you leave your name, either, but I'm firmly against cross talk.

Delete.

Peabody

"Halfway measures are of no avail."

"There is no wand to wave over his head wafting away by magic his undesirable habits."

"But the minute a man seeks to reform for somebody else, no matter how deeply he may care for the other person, he is headed for failure in the long run."

"It would seem as if destitution would act as a powerful deterrent to alcoholism, but, as is well known, the reverse is only too often the case when unstable personalities are involved.  However, the rich and poor alike cannot await the ideal moment for taking up treatment, since it would doubtless never come.  Many of the reasons why the present is unbearable for the alcoholic are derived directly from his drinking and will only be intensified by it continuance."  

Jam-Booda

Contentment:  Happiness in one's own situation.

At the beginning of life is birth, during which we suffer, and at the end of our life is death, during which we also suffer.  Between these two come aging and illness.  No matter how wealthy you are or how physically fit you are, you have to suffer through these circumstances.

THIS is not good news for me.  I do not like to suffer.  I do not care where in the arc of my life the suffering occurs.  It is an unwelcome sensation.  I'm still sure that there is a loophole in there somewhere and I mean to find it.

On top of this comes discontentment.  You want more and more and more.  This, in a sense, is real poverty - always to be hungry, hungry, hungry with no time to be satisfied.  Others might not be rich, but contentment provides them with fewer worries, fewer enemies, fewer problems, and very good sleep.

More:  In greater quantity, amount, or proportion.

I need more.  I don't have enough.  What I have might run out and you have more than I have, anyway, which isn't fair.  Once I get enough then I'll be happy.

I Like The Effect

"That alcohol is no real solution to nervous tension is shown when drinking is carried to its extreme limit.  But, whatever the final results may be, the initial effects are so satisfactory that the individual is tempted to seek this method over and over again for want of a better one, with full realization of the eventual suffering that he must endure."  Richard Peabody 1930

 "Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drink."  Dr. Wm Silkworth in The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous 1934

Don't tell me that our Program didn't get any help from people that came before.  

Don't tell me that the problem is anything but a chase to feel good, to feel better.

I didn't feel good, I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin.  Then I drank and I felt better.

A. B. C.  Easy as one, two, three.  Or simple as Doe Ray Me.

What's the Point?

Sometimes you just get on a roll with people . . . . 

I bought a pair of glasses and a couple of boxes of contacts from the Costco optical department.  (Fair disclosure: I fucking love Costco).  I drove to the store a few days ago to pick up both orders.  I drove down to the store specifically to pick them up.  There was no other reason for me to go to the store.  I did not want to go to the store.  I wanted to do something else.  This was a special trip to get my optical goods.

When I arrived I took a little number from one of those little number dispensing devices (Fair disclosure: I fucking hate those little number dispensing devices, preferring to wade into the crowd, swinging my elbows, and get served first) and saw that there were about ten people in line before me.  So I shopped and bought some crap I didn't really need, checked out, took my purchases to the car, and returned to the optical department where the little device told me that there were still about ten people ahead of me.  So I went home.  Didn't feel like waiting.  No big deal.

Today I made a special trip back down to Costco and found that the situation hadn't changed.  In fact, it looked to me like some of the people who were waiting a few days ago were still there.  I asked one of the optical people if I had to take a little number if I was just picking up an order. 

"Contacts or glasses?"

Both.

"You can get the contacts, but not the glasses because we have to fit them for you."

OK.  How long do you think the wait is?

The kid looked at the line and then back at me.  He appeared to be trying to come up with a figure, a rosy figure, which still would have been a lie.  I know - I'm a liar so I can tell when someone is getting ready to lie.  It would have been a kind, optimistic lie, but a lie nonetheless.

A colleague behind him said: "It's going to be a while."  I wasn't sure why she was butting in but . . . 

OK.  Can I get the contacts then?

As the kid was getting the contacts out I said:  I'll tell you what - can you give me both orders now and I'll come back and get the glasses fitted later, when you aren't so busy?  (Fair disclosure: I don't think I added "when you aren't so busy" but it makes me sound better . . .  in retrospect).

The woman chimes in with: "Sir, there are ten people in line before you."

I'm not trying to cut in line.  I'd just like to pick my order up.  

At this point I didn't know why she was talking to me at all, let alone in this confrontational tone.  I'm really a very low-key person, relaxed in demeanor and friendly, and I wasn't trying to get special treatment.  If I need a little number to pick up my order, fine, tell me that.  If I don't need a little number how about giving me my fucking stuff and I'll get out of your hair? 

She came over and told the kid to give me the order and make a notation on the paperwork that I hadn't gotten them fitted.

I wasn't trying to cut in line.

"Sir, that's not the point.  But you're all taken care of haveaniceday."

I mean what the fuck is going on right now?

Bump and Grind

Grind:  To move with much difficulty or friction.

My first couple of years of sobriety was a grind, more or less.  It was an example of constant, sustained effort.  I don't want to suggest that I was miserable and unhappy - although I was that, indeed, from time to time - or that things weren't improving . . . just that my initial reactions to things weren't positive very often.  I overreacted to minor offenses and episodes and I tossed any sense of gratitude under the bus more often than not.

The arc of sobriety is long but it bends toward justice.  Martin Luther Seaweed

"Habit of thought is more important than will."  

Ah, yes, the fallacy of willpower.  It gets me far but it only gets me so far and it didn't get me far enough with alcohol and drugs.