Good V Bad - Pleasure V Pain

SuperK and I drove to the airport a couple of days ago to get on a plane to travel to the Mediterranean for a cruise and some time in Greece.  I misread or misunderstood or misinterpreted the passport requirements for this country and heard this from the gate agent: "I'm sorry - I can't let you on this plane."  We scrambled and hustled and threw Hail Marys all to no avail.  We couldn't get mad at anyone because it was our own fault and we couldn't ask for an exception because this was a diplomatic issue - even if the agent let us on the plane the customs officials on the other end wouldn't have let us enter the country.  Compounding the fuck-up was the fact that a significant portion of the trip was non-refundable and therefore forfeited.

All of this makes me reflect on the idea that life inevitably has its good moments and bad moments although I categorize them as pleasant moments and painful moments.  This is a nod to the inevitability of pain and pleasure in life and it takes out the moral component.  I'm not rewarded for being a good person and I'm not punished for being a bad person; at least it isn't a one-to-one equivalency.  My life does run more smoothly and is more joyful when I'm behaving well but that doesn't give me an exemption for shit happing that I don't like.  The religious phrase is that "God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust."

The lessons here are unclear at the moment.  I'm still too agitated and emotionally involved.  I do have the benefit of some hard-earned wisdom that allows me to look back on my life and see how pain led to pleasure and vice-versa.  I was on a fast track to being a doctor of optometry when my escalating drug and alcohol use blew me into the weeds.  Disaster, right?  I segued into a line of work that gave me a great deal of freedom and the ability to manage my own time and I think I made as much money as a lot of optometrists, professionals who have forced into a manner of doing business that is no longer attractive to me, having changed so much from when I was young.  When I temporarily got a career going while still using the drugs and alcohol scuttled this avenue and I was demoted and humiliated and forced to move to Chicago where I met the ethereal SuperK.  Today I can see serendipity whereas while I was going through these disasters I could only see doom.

I talk about my own personal recovery slogans.  Here's another good one: "I don't know shit."

%@&!!

 Sunk Cost Fallacy:  The phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.

I am responsible for most of what happens to me.

I've learned that when someone is suffering through a painful experience it's not helpful to offer platitudes like "this must be God's will."  There are a lot of truths in life that can be hurtful to someone who is going through a bad spell.  I use it sparingly.  Also, the idea that I'm getting what I need when I'm getting clobbered is another aphorism that needn't be shared immediately, especially when I'm not getting what I want.  These are kind of big ideas that work best when I'm preparing for what life has to offer and not during the moment of crisis.

Insurance is a ripoff.  

I screamed "Fuck!" into a pillow today.  It felt surprisingly good.  It was also surprising at how well  the pillow muffled the obscenity.  I think I could walk around the neighborhood screaming "Fuck!" into a pillow with relative immunity.

Isn't there a parable about some dude who suffered increasingly severe insults to his person throughout the course of the day after being mildly irritated at his cat first thing in the morning?  "Should of kicked the cat" or something along those lines?

Kick the fucking cat!

I wonder how the cat feels about that.  I bet my cat would scratch my eyes out overnight if I kicked her.

I had some bad news yesterday.  It was one of those pieces of bad news that could only happen when several lapses and screw-ups follow each other again and again.  Where you're left thinking: "None of this could have happened if someone had said this or done this halfway through" but no one intervened at any point until the bad thing was over and done with.  One of those.  And, of course, it was a bad thing that ultimately was my fault.  I was the one who made the mistake to start the process so it's kind of irresponsible for me to point the finger at people who might have stopped the bad thing.

Grasping the idea that "I get what I need and it won't be more than I can handle" is great when I'm getting what I want.  It's a disaster when I'm not.  Then I fail to see the wisdom and cannot stand its sanctimony.

I'm always a little sheepish when I ask for what I want . . . even when I'm adding "if it be your will" onto the end like a childish afterthought.

Also, I've always liked the idea that "It's all God's money" when someone else is suffering a financial boo-boo.  When it's my fucking money then God should keep his hands off of it because I might need it. 

Bill W

 Bill likes to emphasize balance . .  . 

"This surely means that we ought to look toward God's Perfection as our guide rather than as a goal to be reached in any foreseeable time.  Perfect humility would be a state of complete freedom from myself.  Perfect humility would be a full willingness in all times and places, to find and to do the will of God.  When I meditate upon such a vision, I need not be dismayed because I shall never attain, it, nor need I swell with presumption that one of these days its virtues shall all be mine.

Bill W likes to emphasize that we grow through difficulty.  Here he's talking about our predilection to whipsaw between self-centered guilt and self-centered arrogance . . . 

"I think we need not regret these conflicts.  They seem to be a necessary part of growing up, emotionally and spiritually."

I'll confirm this: I don't grow for shit when I'm getting my way.  I take credit for getting my way and when I don't get my way, it's someone else's fault.

Right Here - Right Now

 "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do lies clearly at hand."  Thomas Carlyle

I think my mantra for 2023 so far is "Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior."  If I did it yesterday I'm probably going to do it today.  Change is hard.  If I want to change something I need to change it right now.  You know - "I coulda been a contendah!"  And if I want to change something then it's on me; it's not on you.  I take too much guilty pleasure in blaming The Other for my defects and shortcomings.  If I want to be a contender then I better start contending right now.

Bill W has this to say about Honesty . . . 

"Sometimes I would simply have to look at certain situation where, on the face of them, I was doing very badly.  Right away a rousing rebellion would set in.  Then the search for excuses would become frantic.  'These,' I would exclaim, 'are really a good man's faults.'  When that pet gadget finally broke apart, I would think, 'Well, if those people would only treat me right, I wouldn't have to behave the way I do.'  Next in order was this: 'God well knows that I do have awful compulsions.  I just can't get over this one.  So He will have to release me.'  At last came the time when I would shout, ' This, I positively will not do; I won't even try.' "

Bill W would have made an excellent modern politician.  Deny the problem; acknowledge the problem but state flatly that it wasn't that bad of a problem; digg in and blame someone else for behaving in a way that caused the aggrieved party to commit the problem; relying on God to remove the problem because it's just too hard of a problem to solve all by my little self; and then, finally, screaming: "Fuck it!  I like this problem!  I'm keeping this problem!"

Bill admits that "I had exaggerated my modest attainments by pride or I would exaggerate my defects by wallowing in guilt."  This thinking is familiar to most alcoholics: we swing wildly between thinking we're all that to thinking we're pieces of shit.  Both of these mindsets have as their core motivation, often deeply hidden,  a need to draw attention to ourselves.

Or this: "I'm not much but I'm all I think about."

It's Always The First Step

 A new woman shared this morning about having a tough time with visiting family as she was in the midst of working her Third Step.  I like the axiom that whenever you're struggling with a Step you should go back through the immediately preceding Steps until you get to the source of the problem which - in my experience - is almost always Step One.  If I'm still powerless over some aspect of my life I'm going to struggle with the nuances of turning over my will.

Will:  To want or choose; a determination to do something; to try to cause something to happen by using the power of your mind.

Our wills our a god-given gift/curse that makes life worth living/horrible and can be used in wonderful/destructive ways.  

Re: Family?  Family is hard.  Family that drinks is especially hard.  Trying to convince drinking family members that they should mirror your pious, sanctimonious life of sobriety with only a few months under your belt is a fool's errand and doomed to failure, almost certainly.  A newcomer who isn't drinking is probably someone who quit drinking before, if only for a short while, so family members are rolling their eyes at this pronouncements of the beauty of the sober life.  My family installed some of my buttons so they know where they are and how to push them and what happens when they're pushed.  My defects, so well-hidden and artfully managed, ooze to the surface and determine my behavior.

It doesn't always work out with family.  Sometimes a sober life isn't going to fit into the family dynamic.  Sorry about that.  When I drank I was a train wreck but I was a predictable train wreck and could easily be mollified by the presence of alcohol and a bathroom to take whatever drug I was currently taking.

Seaweed's Guidance

 "Most difficult, too, will be the admission that we cannot be certain of receiving God's guidance because our prayers are so cluttered with wishful thinking.  Surely this is the point at which we must seek the counsel of our finest friends.  There is nowhere else to go.  Of course we cannot wholly rely on friends to solve all our difficulties.  A good adviser will never do all our thinking for us.  He knows that each final choice must be ours."  Bill W

We are engaged in an ongoing search for the countless self-deceptions that rule (and sometimes wreck) our lives.  You can't bullshit a bullshitter . . . unless you're the bullshitter.

If we learn to sit with our anger awhile until we are calmer and more rational, we can avoid shameful, regretful results.  If you want to do something stupid then act when you're pissed off.  I guarantee success.

I'm really grooving on the idea that I'm responsible for most of what happens to me but, boy, is it easier to blame something on the outside.

Side B Stuff

 No one is picking on me.  I'm not being singled out for special punishment.  When I get sick it's not because I did something wrong.  People get sick.  People have problems.

One of the things we say in my household when one of us is confronted with a vexatious person is this: "Who has The Program?"  And while it's said in kindness it's still pretty irritating but it's a powerful reminder that I need to hold myself to a higher standard.  If I act petty and in a vindictive fashion I'm no better than the irritating person I'm silently judging.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.  If you did it yesterday you're going to do it today and you're probably going to do it tomorrow.  I need to stop bullshitting myself about the things I need to do that I'm going to start doing and the things I need to stop doing that I'm going to keep doing anyway.  Change is hard.  Change is a bitch.  I'm rather sit in my own shit than get up and move.

I am responsible for most of what happens to me.  I need to quit blaming other people, places, and things for the state I'm in.  The following is a true story unlike most of this crap that I make up . . .  A friend in recovery was complaining to a sponsor about other people when one day his phone call was answered this way: "It's not them - it's you" followed by a click.

Once I hit 40 the statute of limitations on my childhood grievances against my parents ran out.  It was time to take responsibility for the person I was, change what I didn't like, and quit complaining about the past.

I started to thrive in the business world when I finally figured out some things.  I was not the boss - my boss didn't need me telling him/her how to do his/her job better.  Other employees were not my concern.  I was expected to arrive on time and stay until quitting time and  . . . you know . . . actually work when I was there.  I was sort of cheerful.  I mean, a dude can only do so much.