Have a Drink on Me

My experience in Alcoholics Anonymous has taught me that it's difficult to remove by logic an idea not placed there by logic in the first place.  Trying to tell someone who is still drinking - someone who probably thinks that alcohol is the only thing worth living for, the last refuge, a best friend and lover - that it would be in his best interest to stop drinking is a fool's errand.  Confronting deeply held, habitual feelings with logic seldom works.  I know I was moving through the world mostly on autopilot, doing the same things today that I did yesterday.  It's why I was surprised when there wasn't another beer in the fridge or there was only one Oreo in the bag that I bought that very morning.  The motivations and habit patterns that were underlying most of my behaviors were simply illogical.

I heard a woman share recently about feeling perplexed when she found herself eating a piece of cheesecake when she wasn't hungry.  Fill a want without thinking it through.  I get that.  Have another drink!  Have a drink on me!!

I went to the doctor not long ago so he could have a look at a troublesome wart. 

"That's not a wart," he remarked.  "That's a basel cell carcinoma."  Skin cancer.  He made me take off my shirt and he found a couple more, including a squamous cell carcinoma.  Turns out everything turned out fine but, man, that cancer word gets your attention.  The good news is that we're living longer - the bad news is that the years are tacked on to the end of your life.

Cross-Talking SOB

 Here's the doctor . . . 

"Feelings of love or the lack of it are noticeable in all the mundane ways we show that someone matters to us, especially in the amount and quality of the time we are willing to give them.  This is why there is truth to the adage that we all get the marriage partners we deserve, and why most of our dissatisfactions with others reflect limitations in ourselves."

I've enjoyed the A.A. adage that whenever we see behavior that we disapprove of we'd do well to look at ourself.  Man, do I hate seeing my shitty behavior on display in another person.  I can talk myself into believing that what I sometimes do isn't so bad but it sure looks huge when someone else is doing it.  Quick to judge; slow to act.  The ability to spot my own defects and to overlook yours is a sign of some accruing wisdom.

I left the meeting early today.  Real early.  The homeless are drifting back in but the real problem is that I'm finding the meeting annoying.  I'm not sure what to do about this and I'm not sure that there's anything to be done anyway. The time I've spent traveling with no access to meetings has sure made me aware that I have indeed grown spiritually.  I enjoy/have enjoyed/will enjoy the interactions I have in face to face meetings but I can see that sometimes I'm just filling up a few hours when my time might be better spent doing something else.  Habits are good until they become ruts.

I need to keep my tendency to criticize others while judging myself more gently always in mind.  One of the difficulties with my meeting attendance is that I only go to one meeting and I've gotten too familiar with the members to see them as often as I do.  For example, we had a man with a ton of sobriety start coming to the meeting regularly who was a bit of a bleeding deacon.  Not obnoxiously so but a bit of a know-it-all.  He led the meeting one morning and commented briefly after each member shared.  I wouldn't do it but I didn't think it was a big deal.  A couple of our long-time members were incensed at what they thought was cross-talking, a big A.A. no-no, so they cornered him in the kitchen and called him out.  That was it for him - haven't seen him since.  But these two characters regularly talk through the three minute timer that the group voted to enforce.  They don't go over by a couple of seconds and we're not talking about a new person in crisis - these are both long-timers in recovery.

Such problems I have . . . .

It's Not Them

 "Blame yourself if you have no branches or leaves.  Don't accuse the sun of partiality."  Chinese Proverb

How often do I use my past to find reasons for my faults or shortcomings today?  Because I came from this kind of home or had those kind of parents or were denied this or that privilege or suffered from whatever hardship doesn't give me license to place blame for the way I am.

We live in a culture in which the sense of being wronged is pervasive.  If every misfortune can be blamed on someone else, I'm relieved of the difficult task of examining my own contributory behavior or just accepting the reality that life is and always has been full of adversity.  Most of all, by placing responsibility outside myself I miss out on the healing knowledge that what happens to me isn't nearly as important as the attitude I adopt in response.  The process of nursing blame for past injury distracts me from the essential question of what I need to do NOW to improve my life.  When I check my memories against the versions of others who were also there, I find that my version is often a work of imagination.  This, unfortunately, doesn't stop me from paying it undue attention.  I believe that coming to terms with my past is a process of forgiveness, of letting go, and for me this is simultaneously the simplest and most difficult thing that I have to do regularly.

So much of what I read in spiritual or recovery literature comes back over and over to the idea that I'm responsible for much of what happens to me and when I'm struck by some unseen, unknowable problem or trouble or calamity it's something that happens to all of us.  The idea that I can skate through life pain-free kept me tethered to the bottle and to the pipe.  I can smoke bowls until smoke comes out my ears and I'm still going to get sick and die.  Or hit by a bus.

No matter how I try I have been absolutely unable to change the past.

If you don't like hard rock music don't go to a Metallica concert and then bitch about it afterwards.

Simply Being of Service

I pray every morning that I be shown how I can be of service to someone else.  For the self-absorbed among us this is harder than it looks.

Yesterday SuperK and I ran into a woman we know casually while we were taking a walk.  We inquired after he husband.  She proceeded to talk for a good ten minutes about his recently diagnosed skin cancer.  She did not pause for breath.  She apologized for dumping all of this on the two of us, unnecessarily, I think.  I believe this was an example of service.  At my core, in my essence, instinctually, I don't really care about this woman or her husband.  I care about me.  Me, Me, Me!

There's a dude from Sweden who is often at my coffee shop reading.  I saw that one day he had a book by Kafka.  Kafka is not a coffee shop book.  It's a graduate level comparative literature book.  I know him a little now because we talk briefly about books.  I am under the impression that he is pleased and a little surprised that I've noticed what he's reading and know enough about the topics to comment intelligently.  A little service, maybe?  Does he leave feeling a little better about himself?  I hope so.

 

We stopped by a different coffee shop while waiting to attend a play in L.A. last night.  I always - always! - ask the person providing my Overpriced Specialty Coffee Drink how they're doing and this often leads to a conversation.  (I always say "I've never had a bad day" if they happen to ask how I'm doing - try it some time: it's a hell of a conversation starter.)  She gave me a very cheery goodbye.

It's not that hard.  Don't be an asshole.  Be nice.

Seaweed: Master Bitcher

Grievance:  A real or imagined wrong or other cause for complaint or protest, especially unfair treatment; a cause of distress felt to afford reason for complaint or resistance.

"And did you get what you  wanted from this life, even so?  I did.  And what did you want?  To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.  Raymond Carver

Somewhere between ignoring the past and wallowing in it there is a place where we can learn from what has happened to us, including the inevitable mistakes we have made, and integrate this knowledge into our plans for the future.  Inevitably, this process requires some exercise in forgiveness - that is, giving up some grievance to which we are entitled.

I like how the definition of grievance always includes the intimation that the wrong may not be real.  Boy, for people who like to bitch, to find reasons to complain that are found outside of who we are, this definition is sweet, sweet as honey.  Here are some suggested synonyms for grievance: bellyaching, bemoaning, bewailing, carping, complaining, gnashing of teeth, mutter, squawk, whine, Jesus, this sounds like most of my shares at meetings . . .  These are not kind synonyms.  We all know the feeling of being cornered by someone who bitches about everything and wishing that it would just end, already.  All of us need to get stuff off our chests but the idea is to get to the place where the stuff is actually off your chest.  Re-litigating stuff over and over just gets boring after a while for the listener.

A capacity for laughing is one of the two characteristics that separate us from other animals.  The other, as far as I know, is the ability to contemplate my own death.  I think the connection between these two uniquely human attributes that cuts to the heart of the great paradox of my life: Is it possible to be happy in the face of my own mortality?

More of This

A note I sent to an old high school friend recently. 

Hey, dude . . . . 

As you know I've been trudging along for a while (36 years in August!) in A.A.  We call it a spiritual movement which I do believe to be true although we can get a little smug about this from time to time.  As I've grown over the years I've had the occasion to think about the relationships I've had with family and friends during my life and to contemplate what to call the connections I've had with so many people.  I recently reconnected with a guy from high school who was three or four years behind us and he surprised me by calling me one of his best friends even though we had not been in touch for a long time.  It got me thinking about the rich tapestry of friends and family who have come in and out of my life over the years and how amazing it has been to get to know people and love them.  You know . . . it's funny how often I try to put someone in a category and then ask a lot of myself and of the other person in terms of connectivity and contact and the frequency and intensity of all this stuff.  I've gotten a lot more generous in how I think of people who have been in my life; more loosey-goosey and open-minded.  The people I've been in frequent, uninterrupted contact with since I was a kid; the people who I'm grown close to in just the last few years; people that I've become disillusioned with and those who used to disillusion me before I grasped their nature; old friends that I no longer see but who hold a dear place in my life; what family means; and on and on and on.  My friend, I have thought of you often over the years and it never ceases to bring a smile to my face.  Reds games and Madison Bowl and talking Keith into letting us go to your house on Scroll night so we could get stoned and listen to music and finish up the sports page much more quickly than we would have if we had stayed at school. 

I send this without obligation, brother, just a love letter from Southern California, thanking you for being part of the rich tapestry of my life.  If I'm not mistaken the last time we saw each other was in a bar in Boston where a few of us got together to toast BYL before he left for Brazil on his first Foreign Service assignment.  My recollection is that I was walking toward the bar or the bathroom when you strolled in.  "Hi, Seaweed," you said, deadpan.  "Pete," I replied and continued walking.  We caught up later, of course, although those details escape me, but that perfectly timed exchange was priceless.  I was pretty newly sober so that has to be 35 years ago.  Fuck, how did we get so old?!

Peace, brother.  All is well All is well All is well.

Our Delusional Past

 Things were not really better long ago.  What happens as we try to come to terms with our pasts is that we see our lives as a process of continual disenchantment.  The cumulative burdens of our imperfect lives are harder to bear as we weaken in body and spirit.  Our yearning for the past is fueled by a selective memory of our younger selves.  Memory is not, as many of us think, an accurate transcription of past experience.  Rather it is a story we tell ourselves about the past, full of distortions, wishful thinking, and unfulfilled dreams.   People see themselves differently in the present, and as a result, they have different narratives of how they got there.  If you don't believe this compare your memory of some past events with someone else who was there.  It can be jarring how different the recollections can be

"To know someone fully  and love them in spite of, even because of, their imperfections is an act that requires  us to recognize and forgive, two very important indicators of emotional maturity.  More important is the fact that, if we can do this for other people, we may be able to do it for ourselves.  My constant challenge isn't to seek perfection in myself and, more importantly, in others, but to find a way to be happy in an imperfect world."

There's a woman who is a regular at my home group.  I've always liked her but kept my distance because - like me - she is wound way too tight.  Waaaaaayyyyy too tight.  When I talked to her I felt like I was being cross-examined by a semi-hostile prosecutor.  She was always taking notes and asking for clarification on something I had shared.  At 8 in the morning it was too much.  Waaaaaayyyyy too much.  I identified so closely with her sense of purpose and her drive to accomplish a lot and get a lot done while almost always feeling that her efforts weren't enough.  It can be frustrating to end the day suspicious that more could have been done even though a lot of people comment on how much I've done.  My self-fulfilling prophecy of doom.

After the meeting a while back she came over and said: "You know, Seaweed, I've really come to love you . . . "  A couple of people who overheard her laughed out loud - it sounded like she was implying that she could stand me up to that point.  Eh, maybe she did, who knows?  I didn't take it that way.  I believe that love comes in all kinds of forms and fashions; it can come quickly and it can take forever; it can be deeper or more casual; it can stand the test of time and it can ebb away; it's all valid in our imperfect world.  I took it as a great compliment.  It's all good.