Land Mines

When I was drinking, every time I got close to something I really wanted I would put land mines in my own path.  I do that a lot less now, but more importantly the program gives me tools to detect and disarm those mines.

Now I just have to learn to use those tools more often.

The present moment.

I just ran across a quote from Philo of Alexandria  ancient Jewish Philosopher.

"Today means boundless and inexhaustible eternity.  Months and years and all periods of time are concepts of men, who gauge everything by number;  but the the true name of eternity is Today."

I constantly search for peace and eternity somewhere else, managing always to forget that they are here now.

Our minds are like crows.

"Our minds are like crows.  They pick up everything that glitters, no matter how uncomfortable our nests get with all that metal in them." --Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 104

Mine certainly is.  I've recently found myself mentally chattering a great deal more than usual.  I know what I'm supposed to be focusing on but I keep hopping from shiny thing to shiny thing all the while chattering and screeching away like a monkey on crystal meth.  It's downright unpleasant.

Gee, could it be related to the fact that I've been cutting back on my daily mediation?  As I've said before in this blog, meetings are tremendously helpful, but I need the 11th step.  Right now I'm paying the consequences for neglecting it.

Smiles

This morning I rode the subway in to my regular 7:30 AM meeting.  The crowd on the subway was, as usual, quiet and seemed somewhere between resigned and stoic about the fact that they were heading in to work.  I walked from the subway in to my regular 7:30 AM meeting and was struck by how pretty much everyone was smiling and/or chatting.  The atmosphere was light and joyful.  I was blown away by the contrast with the mood on the subway and more than a little disturbed about the fact that I don't notice this every day.

Then I went in to my work, a rats maze of cubicles surrounded by small offices.  Again, the difference was striking.  Here you could probably find most flavors of unhappiness and smiles were scarce.  Unfortunately, this is something I do notice most days.

Why do I so easily see the darkness and take the light for granted?  It's something I need to do some thinking about.  I also need to think about just how effective a smile can be and I need to do more of that at work.  At the very least I should have some fun making people wonder what's wrong with me.

Let's stay scared

One of the meetings I attend just emailed members an article about the coroner's report on Amy Winehouse.  It is a very unpleasant reminder that we must work our program and continue to grow spiritually.  We either grow or face very unpleasant consequences.

Coroner: Amy Winheouse drank herself to death


LONDON —Soul diva Amy Winehouse died with empty vodka bottles in her room and lethal amounts of alcohol in her blood — more than five times the British drunk driving limit, a British coroner ruled today.
Coroner Suzanne Greenaway gave a verdict of "death by misadventure," saying the singer died of accidental alcohol poisoning when she resumed drinking after weeks of abstinence.
"The unintended consequence of such potentially fatal levels (of alcohol) was her sudden and unexpected death," Greenaway said.
The singer, who had fought a very public battle with drug and alcohol problems for years, was found dead in bed at her London home on July 23 at age 27. An initial autopsy proved inconclusive, although it found no traces of illegal drugs in her system or signs of injury.
Pathologist Suhail Baithun told the inquest into the singer’s death that blood and urine samples indicated that Winehouse had consumed a "very large quantity of alcohol" prior to her death. The level of alcohol in her blood was 416 milligrams per 100 milliliters, he said — a blood alcohol level of 0.4 percent.
The British and U.S. legal drunk-driving limit is 0.08 percent.
Such levels of alcohol intake could have stopped her breathing and sent her into a coma, Baithun added.
Police Detective Inspector Les Newman, who was called after a security guard found Winehouse, said three empty vodka bottles — two large and one small — were found in her bedroom.
Winehouse’s doctor, Dr. Christina Romete, said the singer had resumed drinking in the days before her death. Prior to that, Winehouse had stayed away from drink for most of July, she said, although she had been swerving between abstinence and heavy alcohol use for a long time.

Live humbly, love recklessly

Live humbly, love recklessly

I saw this slogan on a subway poster this morning.  Checking the url on the poster it turns out its for a church, which doesn't particularly thrill me, but the slogan is definitely a keeper.

Glad Gethsemane - how soon I forget

This morning a friend asked me about my understanding of Fr. Ed Dowling's concept of Glad Gesthmane. To put it briefly, this is viewing painful events as opportunities to give to others.  Everything we do sends out ripples, either positive or negative.  I think Mircea Eliade said that when we speak we either bless or curse.  (Boy, is that one I remember far too seldom!)  

My favorite examples of Glad Gesthemane come from extreme situations.  People like Dietrich Bonhoeffer spent their time in German concentration camps helping and supporting other prisoners.  An AA I knew too briefly came to our meeting in his last weeks, saying his only wish was to die sober.  He gave us the tremendous gift of his courage.

The concept, however, applies to the small, everyday things that bother and irritate us. These are the spiritually dangerous times.  As a friend likes to say, it's not the elephants that kill us, it's the mosquitoes.  I find daily irritations a wonderful opportunity to complain and spread the negativity.  I should be viewing them as opportunities to, at the very least, share perspective (humility) and make clear just how small the small things are.

Some thoughts on the passing of Steve Jobs

Since Steve Jobs died on October 5 we have all heard a great many opinions about him and what he meant.  Clearly he was an economic and cultural force for the last several decades.  Virtually all the obituaries and commentaries I have seen have been flat out hagiography.  They look to his immense creativity and his business skills and generally stop there.
There is another side, however.  An essential part of Jobs' marketing genius was his exploiting one of the spiritually damaging aspects of a consumer society: the tendency of people to define themselves to themselves and others through their possessions.  I use a Mac (which I do) so I am cool.  I have an iPod, cool.  An iPhone, cool.  An iPad, very hip and cool.  You get the idea.
In my opinion this is one of the most spiritually damaging forms of materialism.  To put it in terms of the 7 deadly sins, the quest for pleasure and fulfillment through the aquisition of wealth is gluttony; the quest for self definition through material goods is avarice. Few people would admit to being small minded enough to define themselves through their iPods, but in point of fact many do to a greater or lesser degree.
Our recovery is based on humility and love.  Neither of those is compatible with avarice.  To be clear, I am not trying to take anything away from the immense positive side of Jobs legacy.  His advocacy of good design and ease of use helped change technology for the better.  Let's not lose sight, however, of the fact that he did expose (and exploit) one of the dark aspects of our time, our culture, ourselves.

This bowl is broken

A friend of mine recently mentioned that a Buddhist teacher once, while holding his favorite (intact) bowl, said "this bowl is broken."  That is to say, look at it as already past, lost, broken and you won't be attached to it.

I need that kind of reminder a lot.  I remember when I first heard the AA bumper sticker "an expectation is a premeditated resentment."  What, aren't we supposed to have any expectations.  I twisted with that one for years before realizing that the answer was a simple 'yes.'  We can look to the future and plan, but to expect is to attach yourself to an anticipated outcome and attaching yourself is a dangerous thing.

Knowledge may or may not be power, but is sure can be an attempt at control

The doubt and fear that often overtake me come from a desire to know more than I can know.  To control more than it is my purview to control and to control it by know it, intellectually mastering it, neatly delineating it into questions I ask and answers I have.  I take on the universe, and try to make it human-sized, one person-sized, self-sized.  I persist in the notion that I can hold it all in my two hands, grip it tightly, make it mine.
Marya Hornbacher, Waiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Power  (highly recommended!)

I've written before in this blog about how I've come to see worry as a form of control.  Hornbacher's comment prompts me to think about how much I have used knowledge as a form of control.  My academic background is in Philosophy, so it's no surprise that I have sought answers to the 'big questions' all my life.  There was a valid spiritual quest buried in there but there was also a hiding from reality behind pride.  If you really think you can answer the question "Why is there something rather than nothing" you are assuming a pretty high -- let's face it, godlike -- status.  (Note for believers: the question includes within it the question "Why is there a god?").

The 'big questions', at least as I posed them, always set me apart from the reality I was trying to understand.  I was a separate being trying to understand reality rather than a simple part of reality trying to live it.  Living it, treating life as a mystery to be lived rather than a problem to be solved, is humility.

So, I am working on a spirituality that is lived rather than merely thought.  I see what I'm aiming at as somehow related to Taoism, the spirituality of the Cloud of Unknowing ( a 14th century Christian text, one of the inspirations for Centering Prayer), and Dudeism, the path inspired by the movie "The Big Lebowski".  (That last is a good application of Rule 62*.  After all, if you can't laugh, you're not in recovery.)

The goal is wisdom, living a fuller, more loving life, not knowledge

*"Don't take yourself too damn seriously."  see Twelve and Twelve, page 149

The Second Step and Our Limits

I have written before about my misunderstanding the Second Step when I first got into the program.  Like a lot of people, I focused on the Power, demanding to know exactly what it was before moving on.  It took years for me to realize that the Step is fundamentally saying that there is a way out.  The only thing it says about that way our is that it is through a 'power greater than ourselves.'  So far, so good.  I had gotten beyond demanding a theological treatise, but I was still very much focused on that now fuzzy, ill-defined Power.

Over the last couple of days I've looked at the Step a bit differently.  I think it is valuable to see Step Two as a direct extension of Step One.  In Step One we said we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives were unmanageable.  We began to recognize our limits.  In Step Two we continue to recognize those limits and say "OK, there may be a way out, but it sure as Hell isn't me." 

For years as an active alcoholic I insisted that I was the way out.  I would use my tools -- reading, meditation, discipline -- and I would conquer this addiction and I would be happy.*  There is a saying in the medical community that the doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient.  Well, by that standard (and many others) I was a total idiot during my active alcoholism.

Moving from Step One to Step Two is a process of 'coming to believe' that I am not the only resource I can call on, that there are forces greater than me and that I can use their help in my recovery.  It is a gradual process and one that requires practice in every sense of the word.  Luckily, the First Step has relieved us of the burden of doing it all ourselves, since we just plain can't, and frees us to focus on our lives, our behavior and the people and things we encounter.  Gradually, through letting those powers in and doing the work we do come to believe.

And, unbelievably enough, the addiction comes under control and I do end up happy.  Even better, I end up quietly content.

*I now find the statement "I am happy' a bit creepy, since happiness and contentment are not solitary activities.  But that's a subject for another posting.

Steps 3 through 12 are how we get from step 1 to step 2

"Steps three through twelve are how we get from step one to step two."  I heard someone say that at a meeting a while back and I think it's an interesting and, for me at least, fresh way of viewing steps.  

I've long said that step one without step two is a good description of Hell.  "Oh, so I'm powerless over alcohol and my life is unmanageable.  How nice."  Personally I knew that damn well for at least 10 years before I got sober and it just made me drink more.  My salvation was when a small glow of hope that there was a way out appeared.  Typically, I've always viewed that as an intellectual event.  I received the information that AA could help me and that gave me the hope I needed.  

Of course, that's not really the way it really happened.  My bottom came with heart failure induced by my attempt to go cold turkey off alcohol completely on my own.  Laying in an ICU bed I actually decided it would be better if I died, especially for my wife.  I was certain she'd be happier with a new husband.  I don't know what my doctors would say but I was and am convinced that if I had let go at that point that I would have died.  However, the thought crossed my mind that if I worked at it I could be that second husband and that would be a way to try to make up for the years of pain I had put my wife through.  A couple of days later a guy came into my hospital room and 12th stepped me.  That didn't go very well, but I did get a meeting book out of it.  I decided to try a meeting.  That's the point.  I didn't really have hope at that point.  I had a desperate need for hope and a path of action that might provide that hope.  

That, I think, is what the speaker meant when she said that "Steps three through twelve are how we get from step one to step two."  It is by our actions and their results that we grow in optimism and faith in AA.

As the old AA slogan says, it's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.

A life second to none

I have often thought about this phrase that we hear so often at meetings.  For years I've thought about it in terms of equality: all lives are equally sacred and equally capable of joy.  Come right down to it, that's a pretty abstract concept.

At a recent meeting I heard another take on the phrase.  I have a life second to none, meaning I don't want yours.  That, to me is concrete and a challenge.

Another benefit of addiction

There are two themes that consistently pop up at AA meeting that recently came together for me.  The first is how much time we used to spend drinking and how surprising it is to find that time freed up.  The second theme is how drinking was essentially a means of hiding from the pain of life, a way of anaesthetizing ourselves rather than dealing with the problems and joys of being human.

It was only a couple of days ago that I realized that it wasn't just drinking, the actual consumption of that gloriously deadening liquid, that allowed us to hide from life.  It was the whole package: the time spent planning our drinking, figuring out which store we could buy from today so we weren't repeating too much and tipping the clerk off to our problem, the time spent figuring out how to dispose of the bottles, even the time spent hung over ("I'm in no shape to deal with financial planning now!").  All of these thoughts and actions, all of this time, is part of the addictive behaviour of the active alcoholic.  It is all part of crawling into our holes and hiding.

Which brings up a scary thought.  What rituals, what time-wasters am I using now to hide?  We talk about time spent 'pencil-sharpening' to avoid decisions and tasks for which we can be evaluated at work.  How about the rest of life?

"May you live all the days of your life."  - Jonathan Swift

We should be experts at "one day at a time" when we come into the program

Newcomers often balk at the idea of "one day at a time."  After all, it's a trick -- we all know we're really talking about the rest of our lives, right?  But, as a speaker at this morning's meeting said, we all drank one day at a time.  I know for me it was always "well, OK, I've had a rough day (or it's hot, or I'm thirsty) so I'll have one tonight and tomorrow I'll stop - or at least cut down."  I never thought 'Yippee, I'm going to get polluted every night for the rest of my life!!"  

It went beyond just the drink itself, too.  I knew I was screwing up my life and my future, but it was always 'this is what I'll do today; I'll deal with tomorrow when it comes.  I should have come into the program as one of the world's formost experts at living in the day and, yet, it's still a struggle.  As a former sponsor liked to say, I have a strong tendency to live in the wreckage of the future, sacrificing today's joy to my fear of tomorrow.

 

The need for approval destroys our capacity for happiness.

In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander Thomas Merton points out that we are given all we need to be happy and yet "we are ashamed to do so. For we need one more thing than happiness: we need approval. And the need for approval destroys our capacity for happiness."

I think this is profoundly true.  I know that I daily damage my capacity for happiness by looking to the approval of others rather than to the values I actually value.  I find it especially distressing when I seek the approval of people whose values I despise and I allow the quest for that approval to make me ashamed of -- or at least embarrassed by -- the things that can make me happy.

If I were to list my addictions in order of preference, I think 'addiction to approval' would probably come in last.

An unexpected problem

Recently I got a call from a close friend, a sponsee in fact, who indicated he was in real distress.  We spoke for a while, I expressed sympathy and we discussed how his difficulties relate to the program.  I then more or less let it go.  After all, this guy has 13 years of exceptionally solid sobriety, he's sponsored a bunch of people... Sure he has problems but he can handle it.

In short, my reaction was awful.  Just because he's sober double digit years and is very solid, I actually undervalued his pain.  We later made it right -- well, less bad -- but the incident made me think again about how many people with 10 - 15 years relapse.  Perhaps we as a fellowship tend to make the mistake I made.  Just because someone has been around a long time doesn't mean he can't hurt.  I forgot that and from what I've seen I don't think I'm alone.

I got better before I got well

I heard this at a meeting the other day.  The speaker was explaining his recurrent relapses over a period of 24 years.  Every time he stopped drinking things got better.  He felt better.  He was able to get a job.  He acquired material goods.  He developed relationships with women.  In other words, his sobriety was exactly what I imagined mine would be before I entered AA:  his prior life and values minus the booze.   The result, of course, was unhappiness and relapse.  

 AA is not about not drinking.  It is about living in such a way and following such values that you don't have any reason to anesthetize yourself with booze.  AA is about getting well.  I'm tempted to say that when you get well you can handle things getting better and in a way that's true.  The kicker is that the definition of 'better' changes.  You may get your job back or even get a better job.  You may end up in a nicer house with a nice car, etc.  But when you've gotten well, those things matter a LOT less.  Your goals and values change fundamentally.  To cite my favorite Flannery O'Connor quote: You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.

Why do we get sober?

For the last little while I've been thinking about the AA slogan "You can't get sober for someone else - you have to do it for yourself" and, well, I'm not sure it's all that simple.

My bottom came when I collapsed with alcohol induced heart failure and was expected not to make it.  I certainly felt that if I let go I would die and, in fact, I thought that was a pretty good idea.  Primarily I thought my wife would be better off with a second husband.  The thought then occurred to me that I could become that second husband and if I did I could make a lot up to her, so I decided to fight to recover.  The next day my wife and I agreed to launch a project we still call "Brian 2.0".  So, I can certainly say (as I usually do when I tell my story) that I started my recovery for someone else.  For myself I was pretty content with the thought of dying.  If I had decided on the basis of living for myself I would have just let go.

Now I know a lot of people who started for themselves, usually saying they just wanted the pain to stop.  "Sick and tired of being sick and tired."  Yet as they grow in recovery they talk about living for others.

I think we learn that to live for ourselves we have to live for others and in order to live for others we have to learn to care for and about ourselves, sort of to do unto ourselves as we would do unto others.  If we're going to love people, the cosmos, God.... we have to love all people, the entire cosmos, all of God and his/her universe and I guess, uncomfortable as saying it makes me, that means we have to love ourselves.  However, the crucial point is that self-love is not the goal, it is just a small but essential part of our spirituality.

So, the reason we decide to get sober, to enter recovery, is generally not the reason we continue on the spiritual path.  We may start for ourselves and grow to live for something greater, we may start for one person and grow to live for all.  Whatever direction it takes, it is a process of growth.

Anonymity

Last Sunday the New York Times published an article ‘Challenging the Second A in AA’ (http://xrl.us/bkhnum (Link to www.nytimes.com). I have the impression that we get this kind of attack on Anonymity about once a year. However amusing it may be to find it in the Fashion and Style section, the article still bothered me. If focuses almost exclusively on anonymity as a protection for the individual alcoholic from social abuse. Now, I personally think the author is nuts for claiming that there is no longer any stigma attached to drug addiction or alcoholism, but that (like most of the article) is beside the point. First, the author never touches on anonymity as a protection for the fellowship against the potentially damaging publicity from a famous self-proclaimed member going out.
Far more importantly, it is only at the very end that the author mentions the connection between anonymity and humility, yet this connection is the central point. It is critical that when people come into AA meetings they leave as much of their reputations behind as possible. I got sober in Cambridge MA and one of the local mottos there is “when you walk into a meeting you leave your degrees at the door.” It is very important that we enter AA as equals in our illness. We are there because we are sick and flawed, not because any accomplishments or disgraces on the outside. As sick and flawed people we want to heal and grow spiritually. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions and that fact is not changed by the social status of any particular alcoholic. The point is not protection from gossip or backstabbing; the point is maintaining an important spiritual tool.

Questioning the norm

What happens when AA meetings begin to lose their luster?

When a member begins to question the "norm" in AA?

Not so much the process itself (the step work, prayer, meditation, carrying the message), but the series of rituals that have become our meetings?

What happens when this process begins to set in and the member finds more and more reasons to avoid the actual meetings, but tries hard to stay current on the other things (see above)?

What happens when slogans become platitudes, and ritual becomes dogma?

Does the member require help? Do we smirk at their folly? Distance ourselves and treat them as lepers? Is there a way to help them?

I would love to hear some suggestions or comments

Return Good For Evil

For a bowl of water give a goodly meal:
For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal:
For a simple penny pay thou back with gold:
If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold.

Thus the words and actions of the wise regard;
Every little service tenfold they reward.
But the truly noble know all men as one,
and return with gladness good for evil done.

Today I turn 60

Today I turn 60 years old. A good time for feeling old, a failure  -- after all, I did drink myself out of a good career and any possibility of material success.

But 4005 days ago I collapsed from alcohol induced heart failure and was pretty much expected to die.  That was my bottom after 25 - 30 years of daily blackout drinking and the beginning of my new, sober life.  So, at the very least I should celebrate the fact that I'm still here, 4005 days past my sell-by date.  Beyond that, recovery and the life it has given me make me actually happy that I'm still here.  I am a happier, nicer, even wiser person than I was when I was drinking.  As I heard someone say, I was young once and I wasn't very good at it.  I'm pretty good at being post-young and when I decide I'm actually old my bet is that I'll be good at that, too

So, today is a day of celebration.

Got a job and some lessons in humility

I have been absent from this blog for a couple of weeks because after a year of unemployment I have finally found work.  It feels wonderful, but does come with some challenges.

The big issue is that old problem:humility. I am on staff "term of project" (i.e. a temp) and therefore pretty much ignored. It's good training but it takes some real getting used to. Bottom line: I have some real work to do

Worry is a form of control

Someone made this comment at my home group the other day and I think it's an interesting insight.  When I think of control I tend to think of the types of control that (sort of) work: nagging, micromanagement, manipulation, bullying, etc.  I rarely think of the little bits of witchcraft I use to try to influence events, like making endless to-do lists when I'm overwhelmed with tasks or buying a new tool when I'm not sure I'll be able to handle a task.

Worrying just might be my favorite form of witchcraft.  I have a problem, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it right now, so I obsessively worry about it.  That way I keep hold of the problem so it can't do anything while I'm not looking.  Now, that's productive, isn't it?

Recognizing these little magic spells for what they are is the first step toward my letting go of them and living a more peaceful life.

Carrying the message

Recently an old friend of mine reached out for help, he was trying to stop drinking and wanted to attend an AA meeting. This brings the count of people that I grew up and drank with who have at least attempted sobriety, into the double digits.

There was a point in time where I was very concerned that my friends would look upon me as weak-willed for joining AA and getting sober. I tried very hard to keep my anonymity protected for fear of judgment. However, rumors being what they are, word got out there pretty quickly anyway. The list of friends who were willing to talk to me dropped off precipitously during my first year of sobriety. At the time I was so scared of drinking I just dealt with it by doing step work and complaining to my sponsor, but I stayed the path of sobriety.

After a year or two the feelings of shame and loneliness began to lift and I was more open with my friends about what I had done. Some seemed genuinely happy for me, some were still cool to the idea. I never pushed my beliefs on anyone, and said thing like "I have nothing against drinking, I just can't do it anymore."

Then came the day when I started getting requests for help from the very people who had distanced themselves from me. It seemed I had been living a life that showed them that AA worked, and that I had changed. There was a life after alcohol.

As far as I am concerned, this form of "carrying the message" was something I never planned, or even knew I was doing. It has also been the most fulfilling. To be of service to old friends like this can not be measured in words. I am truly blessed to be of service.

Of course, it also says that I hung out with a lot of drunks... but there you have it.

Life doesn't have to be justified

Life doesn't have to be justified.  It is the justification.
I was up for a job a couple of weeks ago that required knowledge of HTML, the language used to lay out information on web sites.  Since my knowledge of HTML could only optimistically be called rusty, I started giving myself a crash course in it and was surprised at just how much fun I was having.  Shortly after I started playing with HTML I was told that I would not get the job.

Believe it!

We are incredible beings.
We live in incredible times.
That is not the issue.
The issue is whether or not we actually believe it.
-Hugh Macleod

In my last post I spoke of "the realization that while individual things might really stink and bad things can and will happen, the world remains a beautiful place"  and I attributed that realization to Faith.  Then I ran across this quote from cartoonist Hugh Macleod and I began once again to think about Humility.  I don't want to get into a chicken-and-egg thing here, but it seems to me that the most important virtues, Faith, Hope, Love and Humility, are deeply intertwined.  I know that the usual lineup is Faith, Hope and Love, but I wonder if any of them is possible without Humility.

Faith is taking the first step...

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
-- Martin Luther King

I saw this quote on a poster in a bus I was riding to a job interview yesterday.  Very nice.

Faith was a difficult concept for me for a very long time.  I was stuck with the concept I had been taught by the nuns in my grade school: faith meant believing what they told you no matter how silly it sounded.   Adolescent rebellion took care of that one pretty fast and unfortunately left nothing in its place.  Cynicism was a sign of intelligence.  The smiling guy was probably pretty dumb.  Reality was grim.  And all this was before I read Sartre.  I was stuck in a 'realism' that recognized only the worst aspects of reality.

It was only with sobriety that I came to a concept of Faith that is beautifully expressed in the above quote from Martin Luther King.  It is an acceptance of reality coupled with an openness to the future, whatever it may bring.  You act to affect future events, not control them.  And with that attitude comes the realization that while individual things might really stink and bad things can and will happen, the world remains a beautiful place.

As I said in an earlier post, my job hunt has been a bit wild this week and here I was yesterday, sitting on a bus, preparing to get back onto that roller coaster when I saw that poster.  Very nice.

The Miracle

"Don't leave before the miracle happens!" It's a saying we tell newcomers, but what do we mean by it? And for that matter, do we all mean the same thing when we say it?

For those of you who know me, or have read any of my previous posts, know that I am not a huge fan of platitudes, slogans and sayings. It's not because they aren't useful or meaningful for people, it's just that, in my experience I have seen too many many members use them as a short-cuts to working through an issue, or in order to provide an answers to something they are unsure about.

I know early on when I heard people say "Don't leave before the miracle happens!" I had no idea what the miracle was, but I assumed it was some magic point where all of this stuff would make sense and I would know how to 'not drink' anymore. The thing was that as time went on no one ever described to me what the miracle was! And, like most newcomers, I was too shy to ask because I didn't want to look like an idiot.

As time passed I did what I usually do with things I don't really understand, I ignored it. Then one day while reading the Big Book I came across the following lines in Step 10:

Die Trying

I generally hate the word "try".  To me it smacks of an attitude of 'well, I'll give it a shot, but I'm not likely to make it.'  I guess part of the problem is that most of the time when I say "I'll try" rather than "I'll do it" I'm giving myself a way out.  "Well, I only said I'd try!"

However, today I was told that I will not get a job I've been working on landing for the last 6 months.  The blow was made worse by the very positive tone of my conversation last Thursday with the hiring manager.  Frankly, I feel awful.  Hope isn't exactly spontaneously bubbling up. I mean, let's face it, you don't see a lot of want ads recruiting alcoholic, arthritic 59 year-olds with a heart condition who have been unemployed for over a year.

Tonight I feel differently about the word "try".  I guess I'm seeing it more the way (I think) others do - not as a hedging of my intentions but rather as a simple recognition that the possibility of failure is always lurking out there.  And yet, despite the threat or even the reality of failure, I have to push forward.  Somehow "I'll try" sounds like a cop out to me while "I'll die trying" sounds like a expression of hope and tenacity.  So, I guess I'm resolving to die trying.

Good thought

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
C.S. Lewis

Rest on our laurels

p.85 - It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. "How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done." These are thoughts which must go with us constantly.

So the phrase "rest on our laurels" comes from the original Olympic games where the winners of an event were honored by being crowned with a wreath of laurels (bay leaves) that they wore on their heads (picture those iconic images of Caesar and you'll get the idea). Of course the implication for AA members is that once we have acheived our goal (a spiritual experience sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism), that we should not rest and assume that this experience is everlasting.

Detachment

I recently ran across this comment by Thomas Merton:

Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between "things" and "God" as if God were another "thing" and as if His creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God. This is an entirely new perspective which many sincerely moral and ascetic minds fail utterly to see.
-New Seeds of Contemplation. (New York: New Directions Books), p 21

Detachment does not mean abandonment of the world in search of a spirituality that is separate from the world.  It means perspective, and with perspective, humility.  As one of my favorite AA slogans says, if it's not practical, it's not spiritual.

I have spoken in this blog about the 'get sane quick schemes' I engaged in when I was drinking.  The various things I tried, such as  meditation and yoga, were good in themselves but they became 'get sane quick schemes' for me because I was using them in pursuit of a disembodied spirituality.  I thought there was some healthy pink cloud I could enter that would make me feel good about the world and (especially) myself without changing anything in the world or in myself.  I was seeing 'spiritual' detachment precisely as a separation from reality, rather than a principled, spiritual engagement with it, contributing to changing it and myself.  Unless I'm seriously misreading Merton, that is what he means when he talks about seeing and using things in and for God.

The Third Tradition - WE THINK NOT!

Among my friends I have been known as the guy who can't stand hearing The Promises read at meetings, which anyone who has read my previous post Those Pesky Promises can plainly see. But hopefully what is also apparent is that it's not that I don't like, or disagree with The Promises, in fact just the opposite... I love them. What I don't like is some of the rituals and pomp that surrounds them.

Some perspective

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. ... Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness 

- Reinhold Neibuhr

Those pesky Promises

Anybody who knows me in AA knows how I feel about what has become known in AA circles as "The Promises". Those often quoted lines on pages 83 and 84 that are such a staple and a favorite of so many people in the fellowship. They know... I hate 'em.

Okay, maybe I don't hate them. As a matter of fact, I love many thing about them. What I hate is what they have come to represent and how they are misunderstood.

Spiritual Materialism

In my last post I called using the AA program as a way to feel good a form of 'spiritual materialism' (also known as 'spiritual narcissim').  As I understand it, spiritual materialism (a term coined by the Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche) involves ego inflation rather than the AA goal of 'ego deflation in depth'.  We inflate our egos when we use our program as a source of temporary pleasure, as a tool for feeling good, rather than as a tool for changing ourselves in a fundamental way, surrendering to our higher power and facing reality.

Are these extravagant promises? (part of a series)

The following is part of a series Dave and I are doing on the Promises. (See Contingent Promises, Learning to Play, and Love for an earlier post.)

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and selfpity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.  
Are these extravagant promises?

Well, as I often hear them interpreted in meetings, yeah, they are extravagant.

God's joy, music, and foreclosures

I am a string in the concert of God's joy.
- Jacob Boehme
I love this quote.  I cannot define what I am refering to when I use the term "God".  For me it is shorthand for the ultimate flowing core energy of being, something that contains all of reality including me, but that's a pretty vague statement.  Whatever it is, I think its defining characteristics are love and joy, and both of those characteristics involve relationship, interaction between all the elements of reality.

Another side of One Day at a Time

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. ~ Annie Dillard

Your mind tricks you into believing tomorrow is a reality, thereby giving you permission to waste today.

I spent yesterday reading a light novel -- nothing great, just an enjoyable read.  Now, there was nothing wrong with that.  In fact, I was more comfortably 'in the moment' than I had been for several days.  Relaxation is good, but, being an alcoholic, I nonetheless felt a bit guilty.  That got me thinking about relaxation vs. wasting time (aka sloth).  I don't really know any rules for telling the difference, but like the classic rule on pornography, I know it when I see it.  The fact is that, while yesterday was a very good day, I do waste - kill - too much time and that is something I have to pay attention to.

This is a side of living 'one day at a time' that I too often forget.  I am responsible for how I live every day and killing time is a felony.

Don't Keep Score

What I am saying is this: the score is not what matters. Life does not have to be regarded as a game in which scores are kept and somebody wins. If you are too intent on winning, you will never enjoy playing. If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted.

Thomas Merton. Love and Living. (New York: Harcourt) p. 12

Go with Your Strengths but Balance Them

The other night a few people from my homegroup went on a commitment. When it was my turn to speak I found myself talking about how I worked my program immediately after I got sober.  For years I had pursued a number of 'get-sane-quick' schemes centering around things like meditation and spiritual reading.  Now, there's nothing wrong with meditation or spiritual reading; what made them get-sane-quick schemes was the way I was trying to use them to feel better about my life without really changing anything -- like stopping drinking, for example.  When you have a glass of vodka before every meditation session just to make sure you're nice and mellow you have a strong clue that there's a problem somewhere.

How to Dismantle Your Program, or The Yellow Brick Road to Hell

In my last post I talked about a friend who was sober for 12 years, systematically dismantled her program, went out for 11 years and has been back for 2+ years. (The lady in question will please note the corrected numbers.) I described how she stopped coming to meetings: First missing a meeting was unavoidable, then it was acceptable, then it seemed like a good idea.

She has since reminded me of the other steps in the process, so, if you're interested in wrecking your life, here's a good how-to:

Getting out of the groove

A series of accidents has led me to miss a lot of my home group 6 AM meetings over the last few weeks.  Weather, car trouble, getting blocked in by neighbors  -- just a whole series of frustrating little things that have added up to an average of only 2 meetings a week for the last 3 weeks rather than my usual 6 per week.  Now, in the last 2 days, I have overslept once and misread my clock once, missing 2 meetings I could easily have made.  I've kept up with other aspects of my program, especially emphasizing the 11th Step, but I can feel the unraveling. 

This leads me to think about just how frighteningly easy it is to get out of the groove.  One of the members of my home group went out after 12 years and in the 3 years she's been back has given a lot of thought to how it happened.  She likes to describe how she systematically dismantled her program, beginning with meetings.  First missing a meeting was unavoidable, then it was acceptable, then it seemed like a good idea.  Then she drank and was out for 7 years.

Now that is scary.  I have got to make a phone call or 2 today and get to tomorrow's meeting.  And, if I see that woman, thank her again for scaring me.

It takes a long time

It takes a long time to become young. - Picasso
That is a good summary of my experience in AA.  As I mentioned in my reply to Maggie Lamond Simone, while it is possible to use AA as a sort of post-detox, a way to learn how to 'just don't drink', if a person limits their AA practice to that they are cheating themselves.  Basically, that makes being a dry drunk the goal and, while that's better than being a wet drunk, it still sucks.

Anonymity and shame

Maggie Lamond Simone recently published a column on the Huffington Post suggesting that AA drop the 12th Tradition, anonymity, and rename ourselves something like Alcoholics In Recovery.

Contingent Promises, Learning to Play and Love

We are all familiar with 'the Promises' of AA from pages 83 - 84 of the Big Book:

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

Dave, the other principal author of this blog, absolutely hates it when this is read at the beginning of meetings. He points out that it is always taken out of context.

Not a bad idea

At the beginning of meetings we always ask "is there anyone here new or coming back?"

I've heard it suggested that we add "Is there anyone here old and going out?"

Heard at meetings and random thoughts

Don’t assume evil motives for what stupidity can explain.

The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one.

When making amends, a subtle shift occurs in our thinking. We go from thinking we were a mistake to acknowledging we made a mistake.

Surrender and the Glad Gesthemane

We all know that the first three Steps are about surrender, culminating in our decisions to turn our wills and our lives over to our Higher Powers.  I, for one, frequently forget the progression in surrender represented by those first three Steps.  Initially we let go of our faith in alcohol.  For a long time we've known that our dear friend alcohol was turning our lives into pain filled shells but we saw no other way of living so we stuck by the booze.  In the First Step we jump off into the unknown.  In a terrifying leap we abandon alcohol and see what else, if anything, there is out there.  In the Second Step we go further.  We acknowledge that there is something greater than ourselves that can save us.  We give up our self reliance and in our culture that is one huge surrender.  Then, in the Third Step we go beyond just asking for help in restoring us to sanity; we actually resolve to surrender our wills and our lives to a Higher Power (in other words, acknowledge that we aren't in control of our entire lives, not just alcohol).  Now we are the ones helping in the effort.  The heavy lifting is being done by the Higher Power we are surrendering to.

Stop runnin', varmint!

For years I have said that as active alcoholics we anesthetized ourselves, cutting ourselves off from the joy and pain of life.  I'm beginning to think that it might be better to say that as active alcoholics we were running and hiding from ourselves, and that the deep meaning of surrender is a willingness to stop, turn around, and face ourselves.  I say "a willingness to..." because we don't surrender once and have done with it; surrender is an attitude that has to be acted upon every day, all day.

What we get to do

A friend of mine likes to remind people who complain about all the things they have to do that those are, in fact, the things they get to do.  That is a wonderful reminder that our sober lives are gifts.  We are lucky to be alive, sober and recovering and we should be grateful for all the things we get to do as a result.

Connected

Recently I've been going through one of my bouts of feeling pretty ineffective - basically useless.  Unemployment can do that to you, especially when you don't have your spiritual ducks in row.
Now, I know the standard response to such a feeling is "get off the pity pot" or "get your ass to a meeting" or something like that.  That advice can be useful, but it also helps (me, at least) to try to look objectively at the situation and see just how much of the problem is purely in my head.  (I almost wrote "is real as opposed to in my head" but, as any alkie knows, a problem in your head can be a very, very real problem.)  After looking over the situation I may come up with a way to work on it or I may decide it isn't that much of a problem after all.

Thought for the New Year

If you're not enjoying life

you're not recovering.