Alcoholic Diary

Eighteen years

2010-08-19T12:00:00.003-04:00

Still here, still sober, even if I'm not posting. Yesterday I celebrated 18 years of continuous sobriety.

Seventeen years

2009-08-19T14:07:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was the 17th anniversary of my first A.A. meeting, which marked the beginning of my current spell of continuous sobriety. I can't say I celebrated, because I was too busy doing things that are little more than the blessings of a sober life:

Took my car in to have the oil changed and the engine light checked—I not only have a driver's license, I also have a car
Worked—I am employable today
Chaired a meeting of the local chapter of a professional organization—not only employed, but on the Board of Directors and also Program Chair
Attended a funeral

The funeral, ironically enough, was for Bumblebee, someone I sponsored for a while. I suspect I was his last sponsor. I hadn't seem him in at least a year, and sometimes wondered if he named me when asked if he had a sponsor. Then I would wonder if he was even making meetings.

Apparently not. He was definitely out there. He committed suicide by stabbing himself to death in the parking lot of the apartment complex where he lived. In the femoral artery. Thank you, Bumblebee, for keeping it green for me on my anniversary.

Tonight I will celebrate with dinner and a meeting! Praise HP, from whom all blessings flow!

Is A.A. a religion?

2009-04-01T11:54:00.011-04:00

On 17 March 2009, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania issued an opinion in an appeal of the case of Glenside Center, Inc. [a clubhouse hosting meetings of various twelve-step programs] v. Abington Township. A lower court had found that the Glenside Center violated local zoning laws, after the Township received numerous complaints regarding an "adverse parking situation" that "made driving difficult and dangerous and prevented emergency traffic from getting through." There were also complaints about "urinating in public, using obscene language and trash which had been left by members attending meetings." Excessive noise and loitering are also mentioned in the opinion. (Clearly demonstrating the danger of these kinds of totally inappropriate, inconsiderate and non-sober behavior at any A.A. meeting.)

The appeal was on the basis of four issues, namely that the Zoning Board:

had incorrectly found that the use of the building did not meet the requirement of being primarily used as an "office,"
had denied the clubhouse its rights under RLUIPA¹,
had violated the clubhouse's right to free exercise of religion by determining that the clubhouse was a "Community Center," and
had failed to prove a compelling governmental interest and had failed to use the least restrictive means to further that interest.

My interest is only in the 2^nd and 3^rd issues insofar as they relate to whether or not A.A. can legally be considered a religion. In its opinion, the Court essentially determined that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religion:

Glenside argues... it is a protected entity under RLUIPA because its activities are a religious exercise.... Glenside argues that AA is not a religion, but its activities and programs constitute a free exercise of religion under RLUIPA. It contends that the 12-step program that AA follows is certainly based upon a belief in a higher power, and various AA members testified that they found a connection with God by attending AA meetings. Glenside directs our attention to a New York Court of Appeals case, Griffin v. Coughlin,... which held that an AA meeting constituted an exercise of religion.

The Board, however, argues and we agree that Glenside presents no binding authority for its proposition that an AA meeting is a religious exercise as that term is used in RLUIPA.² Glenside failed to prove that any of the meetings are administered by a religious leader, i.e., a minister, priest, rabbi or other spiritual leader. Glenside does not hold any religious services or have any religious affiliations. Its Articles of Incorporation state nothing about being incorporated for a religious purpose, but only to assist people in recovering from addiction. Similarly, Glenside’s printed materials state that Glenside is not a religious organization and do not require that members possess any religious belief to participate. While Glenside argues that members have found a connection with God at its meetings, clearly, the primary purpose of the group meetings, whether they be for AA, NA or DA, is to support individuals who are recovering from alcohol, drug, gambling and debtor addictions, not to advance religion. Particularly where AA and NA meetings are concerned, the primary concern of those meetings is to treat substance abuse. Moreover, Glenside and others on its behalf testified that members come from all religious walks of life whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or non-believers in a higher power. The fact that the 12-step program is used and it contains references to “God” and a “Higher Power” does not mean that all members believe that they are partaking in a religious experience when they are attending an AA or NA meeting.

Good for the Court, bad for Glenside Center, Inc. Bad, not because they lost their appeal, but for (1) encouraging the courts to consider A.A. a religion, (2) giving the appearance of violating A.A. tradition of having no opinion on outside issues, and (3) for providing a forum for a number of members of A.A. to violate A.A.'s tradition of anonymity at the level of press, radio and film (not to mention on television and on the Internet).

Glenside Center is not in any sense A.A. or part of A.A. It is a separately organized enterprise with the [presumable] purpose of providing meeting space for various twelve-step organizations. From the point of view of A.A. groups, it is in no respect different from a church, municipal building or community center providing space for meetings—all these entities are nothing more than landlords.

However, I suspect that all the principals of the Glenside Center are members of A.A. As stated in the opinion, many of those who testified on behalf of the Glenside Center are also members of A.A. One was identified by full name as a member of A.A. for 53 years (you'd think he'd know better after that long). The Center's argument included the following:

While AA or its related organizations do not claim to be an established religion, the constituent groups can and have been viewed as engaging in an exercise of religion. The Act broadly defines religious exercise to include "any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious beliefs."

I became aware of this ruling when a friend in A.A. sent me a link to an entry about it in a Washington Post blog named "Under God." In it, David Waters argues that the Court made a mistake on the basis of four objections. After each objection, I'll give my objections to Mr Waters' objections.

Objection 1: Any person of faith can be a spiritual leader.

Actually, I would go even further than Mr Waters. Lack of "a religious leader, i.e., a minister, priest, rabbi or other spiritual leader" should not preclude a gathering from being religious. A prime example would be an unprogrammed meeting for worship of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers.

Objection 2: Assisting people in recovering from any addiction is a religious (and spiritual) purpose.

Accepting this argument would make every rehab and detox in the U.S. a religious organization. It would also make seeing any health-care practitioner for help with an addiction into a religious activity.

Objection 3: Any group that advances the healing of bodies and souls (and the forgiveness of debts and debtors) also advances religion.

By this argument, entering into any course of psychiatric or psychological therapy, participating in any of numerous self-help organizations or classes, going to see the doctor, going to the gym to work out, or seeking credit counseling would be considered a religious activity. This is patently absurd.

Objection 4: Clearly the court is unaware of the history and purpose of AA.

Clearly Mr Waters is not fully aware of the history and purpose of A.A. Let me address each of the facts he cites in support of his objection.

Alcoholics Anonymous was founded as a spiritual program, direct outgrowth of the Oxford Group at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York.

True. But it's also true that the Oxford Group (known since 2001 as Initiatives of Change) considered itself non-religious. Furthermore A.A. separated from the Oxford Group at least in part due to the latter's belief that alcoholism was a sin rather than a disease, and to sever what might appear as ties to a Christian organization.

AA meetings include recitations of The Lord's Prayer and the Serenity Prayer.

Actually, this seems to me to be a reasonably good argument. It's one reason I do not participate in saying the Lord's Prayer at meetings. Not all meetings use the Lord's Prayer, though I'd have to say that most in the U.S.³ do. As for the Serenity Prayer, so far as I know, it is not perceived to be associated with Christianity, despite its purported author being a Christian theologian. As insightful as it may be to us drunks, the idea would seem to be quite universal in thought and application among those who consider and practice such things. Indeed, the essential idea can be found in a Mother Goose rhyme:

For every ailment under the sun

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

Back to Mr Waters' argument:

"AA indirectly derived much of its inspiration from the Church," Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Rector of Calvary Church, said in 1955.

Key word: indirectly. I'd say that a huge number of institutions of Western civilization were indirectly derived from Christianity, not the least of which is the United States of America. Furthermore, citing a single person—a non-A.A. member at that—saying this in a single speech is not much of an argument. Bill W., co-founder of A.A. and a much better source to cite, said of the phrase God as we understood him that it was "tremendously important," "a ten-strike," enabling "thousands to join AA who would have otherwise gone away," opening the door to "those of fine religious training and those of none at all," making "one’s religion the business of the AA member himself and not that of his society."⁴

AA's Twelve Traditions includes No. 2: "For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority -- a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience." Seven of AA's famous Twelve Steps reference God, including:

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Newcomers to A.A. are commonly encourage to find a power greater than themselves even if that power is nothing more than a doorknob or an ashtray. Many A.A. members attain long-term sobriety using A.A. itself as a higher power (God is sometimes identified as an acronym, standing for "Group of Drunks"). Even casual acquaintance with A.A.'s program makes it clear that this higher power can be of whatever conception one so chooses. See also the quote of Bill W.'s referred to above.

"Would that the Church were like this," Shoemaker said in 1955, "ordinary men and women with great need who have found a great Answer, and do not hesitate to make it known wherever they can - a trained army of enthusiastic, humble, human workers whose efforts make life a different thing for other people!"

Is Mr Waters saying that a non-religious group of people cannot exhibit these same characteristics? I suspect that any number of political activists would be happy with such a description.

If a group that meets under spiritual precepts, performs rituals, and seeks to heal its members isn't religious, what else is it?

Rituals? To what rituals does Mr Waters refer? He hasn't mentioned any up to this point in the article and doesn't mention any after this either. And without rituals, all that's left is a group that uses spiritual precepts and seeks to heal its members. In at least one sense of the word spiritual, a vast number of groups satisfy this description.

Indeed, much of the argument comes down to whether or not there is a difference between spirituality and religion, and what that difference might be. From the American Heritage Dictionary:

spir·i·tu·al
ADJECTIVE:1. Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. See synonyms at immaterial. 2. Of, concerned with, or affecting the soul. 3. Of, from, or relating to God; deific. 4. Of or belonging to a church or religion; sacred. 5. Relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural.

As will be clear to anyone who is familiar with A.A. and its program of recovery, A.A. itself would not accept any definition other than one with the broadest possible meaning. The meaning of A.A. being a spiritual program could be that it is religious to the member who is herself religious. That meaning could be only that it is intangible or immaterial to the member who is himself not religious. A.A. itself doesn't care. A.A. is areligious.

¹Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act—a federal statute passed in 2000 to provide stronger protection for religious freedom in the land-use and prison contexts.

²The opinion footnotes this sentence with the following:

RLUIPA defines “Religious exercise” as follows:

(A) In general. The term “religious exercise” includes any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.

(B) Rule. The use, building, or conversion of real property for the purpose of religious exercise shall be considered to be religious exercise of the person or entity that uses or intends to use the property for that purpose.

³I know from personal experience that the Lord's Prayer is rarely used in Australia, and that because of this Australian members of A.A. pride themselves on being more consistent with A.A. principles than A.A. in the U.S. is.

⁴Full quote, from A Conversation with Bill W., A Synopsis of the Question-Answer Period following Bill W.'s talk at the NCCA Syposium in New York in 1960:

When these Steps were shown to my friends, their reactions were mixed indeed. Some argued that six steps had worked fine, so why twelve? From our agnostic contingent there were loud cries of too much “God.” Others objected to an expression which I had included which suggested getting on one’s knees while in prayer. I heavily resisted these objections for months. But I finally did my statement about a suitable prayerful posture and finally went along with that now tremendously important expression, “God as we understand Him” — this expression having been coined, I think, by one of our former atheist members. This was indeed a ten-strike. That one has since enabled thousands to join AA who would have otherwise gone away. It enabled people of fine religious training and those of none at all to associate freely and to work together. It made one’s religion the business of the AA member himself and not that of his society.

Still above ground and sober

2008-12-12T12:11:00.002-05:00

For anyone who's wondering, I'm doing okay. I got elected to another Area office and expect to continue in General Service for another two years. Nimue is divorcing me after nearly three years of separation. Despite that, I feel as good as I have in a long time. Despite some heavy bouts of depression over the last nine months, I recently thought to myself, "Ah, so this is what it feels like not to be depressed! I had forgotten."

Despite the fact that I haven't posted for over nine months, every now and then, someone adds a comment to an old post. This, if nothing else, sporadically reminds me that I'd like to taking up at least semi-regular posting again. Absolutely no promises, we'll see.

Today's reflection

2008-03-04T10:05:00.002-05:00

The entry for March 4th in Daily Reflections has long been among my favorites:

The essence of all growth is a willingness to make a change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 115
By the time I had reached Step Three I had been freed of my dependence on alcohol, but bitter experience has shown me that continuous sobriety requires continuous effort. Every now and then I pause to take a good look at my progress. More and more of my garden is weeded each time I look, but each time I also find new weeds sprouting where I thought I had made my final pass with the blade. As I head back to get the newly sprouted weed (it’s easier when they are young), I take a moment to admire how lush the growing vegetables and flowers are, and my labors are rewarded. My sobriety grows and bears fruit.

The Bill W. quote inspires me, and the garden metaphor is beautiful and accurate. It describes where I am, where I have mostly been for quite some time.

I am a product of God's grace and mercy. Of his grace, because I got something I didn't deserve; of his mercy, because I didn't get what I did deserve.

Bad language in meetings

2008-02-27T14:30:00.004-05:00

The groups in one of the Districts in our Area are having trouble finding locations in which to meet. They've been kicked out of certain churches and the word seems to be spreading among those churches that we're not very good tenants. The two primary issues are (a) too much bad language and (b) smokers congregating around the entrances and leaving butts lying around.

My home group has a requests in our format bearing on these issues and we have [usually] dealt with abuses as they come up. It's something I highly suggest that other groups consider with regard to what their group conscience should be. Every time I hear someone using language generally considered impolite I shudder, imagining some pillar of the church congregation passing by in the hallway at that moment and overhearing us. Personally I have little objection to people using whatever language they wish, but I also think it's important that many people do take offense at such language and that we need to be especially wary with regard to our landlords.

Not too long ago I heard something that covers my feelings on this subject very well:

The absence of profanity offends no one.

Studying the steps as laid out in the Big Book

2008-01-10T12:58:00.000-05:00

IMNSHO, there's no way to become familiar with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous like doing a study of the Big Book, paragraph by paragraph, in a group, with plenty of time to comment and discuss with each other.

Tuesday night my sponsor, in his home, started [what I think is] the fourth such annual study group. Most years, including this year, we use what I recently learned is the Hyannis rotation to determine which pages in the Big Book to read for which steps. It comprises "The Doctor's Opinion" and chapters 3 ("More About Alcoholism"), 4 ("We Agnostics"), 5 ("How It Works"), 6 ("Into Action") and 7 ("Working with Others"). While not specified we usually read Appendix II ("Spiritual Experience"), which of course was added after the first printing of the first edition to clarify that not every alcoholic need have a as vivid an experience as Bill W. had in order to recover. Last year we also used Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

It was originally my suggestion that we follow the Hyannis rotation. I knew about it because of a regular Big Book Step Study group that I attend whenever I can. At that group's meeting, we read a page at a time rather than a paragraph at a time, but the discussion generally stays focused on the step being studied and is usually quite excellent. I've learned a tremendous amount there.

That Big Book Step Study group was started about a dozen years ago and originally used the chairperson's guidelines (somewhat loosely I believe—I only started attending later) and the Hyannis Preamble, modified so that only those who had worked all twelve steps could share. Early on, by group conscience, they abandoned that requirement, as well as the one in the Hyannis Preamble that only those who had worked the step being studied could share.

So far as I know this group was never—and is still not—listed in the Hyannis directory of "official" Big Book Step Study meetings. I'm just as glad. The idea of putting an "official" seal of approval on any group disturbs me. I'm not exactly sure why, though the first—and, so far, only—thought that comes to mind is that it may violate the Third Tradition: an A.A. group can have no other affiliation than that with A.A. itself.

P.S. On an entirely unrelated note, the fortune cookie that came with my Thai lunch said, "You are the master of every situation." Ha!

I'm baaaack

2008-01-07T17:46:00.000-05:00

Well, that took longer than I had expected. LOL! I'm not sure what "that" was, but I never intended to go almost six weeks without posting. I appreciate all the people who checked in with me to make sure I was okay.

Several things happened. First, in early December, I was consumed with preparing for a meeting of the Area Committee. Next I had to get my affairs in order because I was leaving town in mid-December. Then I actually left town, traveling across the continent for Christmas with my four grandchildren (and daughter S-Cat and her husband Revson). Finally, after my return, I had some trouble adjusting to my normal life again. I hope I'm now back in stride.

Late in November I started up on a new med. I'm still not quite sure how I'm doing. At worst, the nature of my depression has changed from being angry and pissed off all the time to merely having trouble getting out of bed every day—part of what I meant above by "trouble adjusting to my normal life." At best, I'm doing much better and the difficulty getting going has been due to jet lag, not having any work and my natural laziness. I need to check in with my therapist and I'll be seeing my primary care guy late in the month. I am having some other physical symptoms that may or may not be due to the sertraline: muscle clenching, some congestion and a mild cough.

The congestion and mild cough may be something I picked up from my grandchildren. In any case, I sure enjoyed it. It wasn't exactly relaxing and I didn't get a lot of sleep—the four grandchildren are all age 6 and under. I slept in the living room and the oldest got up like clockwork at 6:15 AM every morning. He made sure I got up then too, usually by coming in and jumping on top of me. It's been many years since I spent Christmas morning with small children and that was a real delight. The four of them got a huge pile of presents. I worry that they're going to be spoiled, but I didn't hesitate in contributing to that, hehehe.

My son-in-law Revson and I spent the afternoon of the day after Christmas fishing the with two older grandchildren. What a blast! The two of us started off by hooking the fish—spotted bay bass, and we were catching and releasing—then passing the rods to the two kids. But we had three rods, so the oldest grandchild started hooking and catching his own. In the end the two of them pulled in well over a dozen fish. He got a few more than she did, but she got the biggest one of the day, so everyone was happy.

Revson has started attending A.A. since I last visited so I got to attend more than my usual number of A.A. meetings. That was a real treat; I met some wonderful people. There were a number of things I noticed about A.A. there that are different from A.A. here. (1) We have anniversaries: e.g. 30-, 60-, 90-day ones as well as yearly ones; they have yearly "birthdays" (and actually sing "Happy Birthday"), while milestones of less than a year are "special occasions". (2) When reading "How It Works", they recite in unison, "God could and would if he were sought"; here, we don't. (3) Their chants after closing (generally with the Lord's Prayer, just like we do) are longer and more enthusiastic than ours are.

I heard early on that the single most common thing that alcoholics communicate with GSO in New York about is a complaint along the lines of "I just moved to this part of the country from somewhere and they don't do A.A. right here!" One time when I visited GSO I asked if this was true. Turns out that it is. I can't help observing that while A.A. does seem to be practiced slightly differently in different parts of the world, people everywhere seem to be able to stay sober. And that's all that really counts, isn't it?

Atheists come to believe (or not)

2007-11-29T15:54:00.000-05:00

Monday night was my home group's monthly speaker meeting. It was the first time ever in my 15 years that I've seen (or should I say heard?) a group sung to by a speaker. He sang the opening lines of a couple of corny tunes that I didn't know and certainly don't remember. His singing voice wasn't even very good.

Much more impressive was the story of how he, as a one-time atheist, found God. I always find such stories very moving. Just last Saturday night, at the Came To Believe meeting I attended, I heard another such story from an atheist, which moved me nearly to tears. At that same meeting, still another person said he had been brought up an atheist and had been angry at all the same things his parents had been angry at, whatever they were, which of course made us all laugh. These sharings reminded of what the Big Book says about the purpose of including selected people's stories: "Each individual, in the personal stories, describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God."

I must say too that I know several people—not many, but a few—who have what appears to be good long-term sobriety without what I would call a God in their lives. I can think of one in particular who continues to use A.A. as her Higher Power, and she's been coming around regularly since several years before I started to. Every now and then I hear people comment on how it seems like everyone who stays in A.A. and works the program eventually comes to believe in a personal God, but I'd say it's certainly not everyone.

Follow-up

2007-11-27T14:32:00.000-05:00

OK, it's Tuesday afternoon and I finally added the pictures to my Thanksgiving post.

I also saw my primary care provider not long ago and, apropos of my other post yesterday, he was less than enthusiastic about tricyclic antidepressants. I left with a prescription for sertraline, better known by its trade name, Zoloft.

Still unmedicated

2007-11-26T15:42:00.001-05:00

I remain unmedicated for my mental condition. I haven't posted vis-a-vis my lack of fluoxetine (generic Prozac) for over a month now (that post is here). Last Wednesday, I met with Macron Larks to discuss getting back on something. He suggested I try a tricyclic antidepressant, specifically either amitriptyline or nortriptyline, which, if anything, should help me sleep better (one of my big problems with the fluoxetine is that it seriously disturbed my sleep). He thinks they're rarely prescribed these days because (a) they're old and boring rather than being new and hip, and (b) the pharmaceutical companies don't push them since they don't make any money on them any more. This means they're "cheaper than dirt." Despite what the link above says about amitriptyline, some references indicate that using it can result in excessive weight gain¹, which I really don't want to have to deal with. So I'm more inclined toward nortriptyline. I have an appointment with my primary care guy tomorrow and I'll discuss it with him.

Again I want to thank Doctor A for warning me about the dangers of going back to any antidepressant without supervision.

Actually the main reason I went to see Macron was to discuss my marital situation and some thoughts I've had about what to do about it. A most interesting discussion it was too, and eventually I'll probably post about it, but to do so now would be premature.

¹One of these—undated I should note—reports the interesting fact that tricyclic antidepressants are "the leading cause of death by drug overdose in the United States." Such irony!

Thanksgiving

2007-11-26T11:09:00.000-05:00

[Before I get started on my topic here, I'll just note that I tagged eight more of my fellow bloggers with the recovery meme I posted on Wednesday at the behest of the Junky's Wife.]

I started this post last Friday afternoon. Unfortunately I simply don't have the time to do all the things and be all the people I want to in the limited amount of time available. Sigh.

I spent Thanksgiving day at an mini-alkathon¹ in a river town a little over 30km from home in an adjoining Area. There was a nice turkey dinner for anyone who showed up, plus breakfast for those who were there early. It was something like the 10^th year for this event, although I don't remember ever hearing about it before (another advantage of attending a new set of meetings—I get to hear about goings-on that I didn't know about before). There was a speaker every hour on the hour from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Most speakers spoke for 30 minutes and allowed discussion to follow. At least one used the whole hour. I was lucky enough to be invited to speak in place of a no-show for the final slot.

Having heard they needed help, I showed up around 9:00 AM. They let me help alright, but not with anything so important as cooking: instead they let me take out trash, make donation cans, run errands and, of course, help clean up afterwards.

I took some photographs². It was held in a church that I'm told has been very eager to have A.A. folks put on this event. It's a great facility in which to do it.

They hung a sign on the street to let everyone know that this was the place.

It was held in a gymnasium behind the church known as "The Lord's Gym."

Probably a couple hundred people flowed through the facility during the day. A few people I knew showed up, including the man who was Delegate in our Area when I was a DCM. Mostly though I hadn't known the people I met that day. I heard a number of good things throughout the day. The one that has most stuck with me came from one of the cooks who spoke. He said, "If I could drink normally, I'd drink all day long." Is that alcoholic thinking, or what? I heard at least one person say that if it hadn't been for this alkathon, they'd have had no place to go that day. Another admitted that she had planned on getting drunk that day, but a friend had called her and convinced her to come to the alkathon instead.

All in all, I felt very good about the day. I'd never done anything like this for Thanksgiving; I'd always spent it with family and friends. The group that put this alkathon on also has them on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Last Wednesday I bought plane tickets to fly across the country and be with my grandchildren for Christmas, but maybe I'll go back and do it again for New Year's. It sure would beat getting drunk and wearing a lamp shade on my head.

¹Anyone have an opinion or knowledge about how to spell this word? Google reports the following number of results for each of the spellings shown:

	alcathon	655
	alcothon	355
	alkathon	1,770
	alkothon	2

²I'll upload pictures later this evening, after I get home to my camera.

Recovery meme

2007-11-21T12:29:00.000-05:00

I'm not entirely pleased about being tagged with this. In general, these things remind me of those stupid chain e-mails I get all the time. Or the sickeningly smarmy religious, spiritual, joke or greeting card e-mails I get from people I otherwise think of as friends. Of course, in general, I can be a really self-righteous intellectual asshole concerning just about anything.

If part of the rules said I'd get seven years of bad luck or other bad things would happen to me if I don't comply, I absolutely would not. But they don't, so I'm gonna do it. If for no other reason than because of the tremendous respect I have for the Junky's Wife, who, after all, says she loves me and wants to be my BFF.

Here are the rules:

Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
Post these rules on your blog.
List seven things you're grateful to have learned in recovery.
Tag seven people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

Note that I'm doing this without having read what anyone else has written in reponse to this. That will help me ensure that these are really mine.

Seven things I'm grateful to have learned in recovery

I see it's specifically about the things I've learned in recovery. Well, that narrows it a little bit. The first two are things that I often refer to in telling my story or just sharing in meetings.

I'm grateful to have learned that my Higher Power didn't hold all those awful things I did against me, and therefore I don't have to either. The way I usually say this is that the first great gift I got from A.A. was the ability to look myself in the mirror every morning, and feel good about who I saw looking back. Over the 26 years I drank, the load of guilt, shame and remorse became so heavy that I thought I'd never feel this way again.
I'm grateful to have learned that I'm nothing more than a garden-variety drunk. I'm essentially no different in that respect from anyone else who has ever come in the rooms, or who will eventually come in the rooms, or who is qualified to come in the rooms but will die, be institutionalized or be jailed before they make it. This is a lesson that took four years to learn well enough to pretty much stop having the thought that I'm somehow different.
I'm grateful to have at last learned how to truly serve and worship the God I've always acknowledged in my life: by working the 12 Steps of A.A. in my affairs.
I'm grateful to finally have discovered a grand and real purpose to my life: that of helping still-suffering alcoholics recover from alcoholism.
I'm grateful to have learned that I want to be like so many of the people around me in this Fellowship and particularly in service to this Fellowship. It's like have a second, but much larger and more widespread family. This is truly ironic in that it's these very people I used to scorn and to scoff at when I was sitting on my barstool.
I'm grateful to have learned that I'm not always right, that it's not even important that I be right. I still quite often forget this, but usually—I think—eventually remember it. Even if I don't tell anyone.
I'm grateful to have learned that time is not all that important. What's most important is today's sobriety. The only worthwhile thing about time is the way I may have used it (i.e., to form good habits, to identify who's got what I want (so I can mold my habits around what they do), to make myself ready to have God remove my defects, to make amends and, above all, serve others—this list could be extended ad infinitum).

This last item is particularly poignant to me right now. I've come across an astonishing number of people lately who had lots of time, went out and, now that they're back, are obsessed with the time they had. They say things like, "No one can take away the 20 years I had before I picked up." Saturday morning a small group of friends and I confronted another friend who was in denial about having gone out earlier in the week. She was saying things like this. It was crystal clear to me—heart-breakingly so—that we were arguing with the demon Alcohol, not with the person I love.

OK, I did it. What's still left is to tag some folks. I'm gonna take the seven pretty loosely. One comes immediately to mind: Daily Piglet, you've been tagged. I'll find some more later and post an addendum.

(BTW, I have one final complaint: is this really a meme? Or did someone just pick the word because it sounds all hip and technologically cool?)

Addendum, posted 23 Nov 2007:

I'm also tagging my fellow bloggers at Down from the Mountain; Geisha, Interrupted; Letting go; Recovery Archive; the smussyolay; Stay-at-Home-Mayhem; This can't be it and Thorn In My Flesh (née Stay-At-Home Motherdom). I was also gonna tag Vicarious Rising but Scout beat me to it. Yeah, I know that's nine; I can count. So what?

Separated

2007-11-15T21:48:00.000-05:00

Did I mention that Nimue and I are separated? But living in the same house? No? Sorry 'bout that.

It's so. It's been so, for ~~going on 3~~ over 2 years. It was her decision. Something to do with giving better attention to her children, which I didn't really understand. She asked me to move out. Her request astounded and infuriated me.

When we married, she came with very little in the way of financial assets (but did bring along a history of two recent bankruptcies). I brought significant assets, the biggest of which was the house. It seemed like an ideal place for her children to grow up. So we agreed that we'd live here, even though it's the house I lived in with my first wife and in which Bitter Cookie and I raised our children. I bought out my ex-wife out and re-financed (which, among other things, means that my mortgage lasts until I turn 79). I moved back in shortly before Nimue and I married.

Now she was asking me to move out, to continue paying the mortgage and utilities, and to find a place of my own in which to live. I flat out refused. She wouldn't leave either, because "it's the kids' home and they don't want to leave," so she sleeps in what used to be the family room.

Shortly before she made her decision that we should separate, we had been seeing the therapist, Macron Larks. He'd been therapist to both of us from long before we got together, so he was a natural choice. She mentioned in one of our last sessions with him that she'd had this strong intuition that a separation might be good (for her children). Macron allowed as how it could be important to pay attention to such perceptions, but stressed that if we did separate for the sake of Nimue's children, it was very important for the marriage that she put set a date when the separation would end. When the youngest turned 18, or 21, or when the last one had finished high school, or college, or something like that.

I reminded her of this caveat a year or so into the separation—when we still seemed able to have rational conversations—and told her that one of my big fears was that she'd never set such a deadline, that one thing would always lead to another and there'd be no end of good reasons to continue the separation a little longer. At the time she allowed as how that was probably true. I remember how my heart sunk when she agreed so readily. It was like a punch to the belly.

All this came up tonight when she asked if I had decided about going back to see Macron Larks, something I had agreed to think about. I reminded her about his caveat. Now she has no memory at all of him saying it at all. "Besides," she says, "I have no control over when my children will be ready to leave."

I still can't believe it. As if my heart hadn't sunk low enough already, it has gone into free fall. A veritable body slam to the belly.

Why stay in a relationship with an addict?

2007-11-13T12:07:00.000-05:00

Mary P Jones has written two excellent posts over at A Room of Mama's Own in which she gives her answer this question. The first focuses on what addiction is and what it isn't. The second is more about the actual answer to this question. Good stuff.

Personally, I like to think that I would take my commitments, both to the person and to the institution of marriage itself, seriously enough that I would stay married, even if she turned out to be a full-blown addict of any sort. This is largely due to my upbringing and the very strong emphasis in my religious denomination on the sanctity and permanence of marriage. Nonetheless, they are called vows, and I also want to take any vows I make to be taken seriously. Primarily by myself, but also by others.

Staying married, however, doesn't mean living with or putting up with the crap. Frankly I'm amazed that Bitter Cookie stayed with me for almost 24 years. Things went downhill almost continuously during throughout our time together. There was a brief, inexplicable rekindling of our romance for a few months less than a year before she filed for divorce (I'd been sober 3 years at the time), but other than that, the relationship just continued to worsen. It was so bad, that one of my daughters actually told me she was glad we got divorced. In the end, Bitter Cookie decided that she liked me even less sober than drunk and that was it.

Notice I started off saying, "I like to think..." The fact of the matter is that I've never really had to deal with the kind of behavior like that the spouse of an addict like the Junky's Wife describes in her blog. I look at my life today, at the rudeness and inconsiderateness that I put up with at home and how I react to it, and I see that it probably wouldn't be that simple for me. My friends think I'm nuts to stick around but for whatever reason, I seem to lack "courage to change the things I can." Well, that, in part, is what working the 12 Steps on this relationship is going to be about, I guess. Sigh!

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

51 years of continuous sobriety

2007-11-13T11:39:00.000-05:00

Saturday night I traveled about 25km to attend a group's 57^th anniversary. Another 175 or so had traveled there as well. After the food and fellowship, they had three speakers.

The first was their "90-day" speaker. He actually had 5 months and gave a very coherent, well-thought out talk about the things he didn't accomplish because of alcohol. One of those things he missed out on was a seat in Congress, so it's not too much of a surprise that he was a good speaker.

The second speaker was their "1-year" speaker. She actually had 14 months and did a good job as well. She was somebody I had recently met. I spent a few minutes before the meeting listening to her complain about not getting a program at our Area's annual Convention/Assembly, an event I had a major role in. (We ran out of programs because, despite planning for a 15% increase in attendance, it actually went up more like 30%, to 900 people.) To her credit, she volunteered to be a part of the planning committee for next year's Convention/Assembly. Unfortunately, that committee comprises our current and past Delegates only.

The final speaker, who got 30 minutes where the other two had only 15 minutes, was their "long-term" speaker. He was somebody I had heard several times before and now has 51 years of continuous sobriety. I was in 1^st grade when he got sober! He gave the best talk of any of the four or so I've heard him give, even though it was only an abbreviated version. What made it so good was his gratitude and strong emphasis on service. He was a true inspiration!

Wish I'd written that

2007-11-12T22:14:00.000-05:00

A Slob's Guide to Spiritual Growth
It is better to watch the game in your undershirt with a can of cola in your hand than a can of beer.
When you holler at somebody, you always feel lousy afterward--like a hangover.
Life is a steady drizzle of small things--carry an umbrella.
Tomorrow is another day.
Never give up.
Concentrate on what you're doing--it beats thinking.
If you let the other fellow alone and don't get so upset about how he's living his life, you can watch more TV.
It is more fun to be happy than angry.
Don't take anything too seriously, including all of the above.
This, too, shall pass.

Excerpted from the article, "A Slob's Guide to Spiritual Growth," the full version of which can be found in the A.A. Grapevine Digital Archives [subscription required], in the book, Best of the Grapevine [I think the link is to the correct volume—Vol. I], or here [scroll down to the bottom—the full article begins with the words "IT'S A SQUIRMY word"].

Wish I'd said that

2007-11-12T22:04:00.000-05:00

My views on AA's singleness of purpose [are] unshakable.... For too long I ran on self-will. I blamed anything for my state of mind and my train-wreck of a life; anything and everything but alcohol and my relationship with booze. Once, I thought I knew best. I realise now I don't. But I had to wreck my life, hurt others and nearly die to dsicover the truth. To acquire self-knowledge.

The literature is very, very clear. AA can only and must only deal with alcohol and alcoholism. I'm not going to change a program which works. I'm not going to re-write the program to suit me. It's all in the Book.

Thanks for saying it, rootsradicaluk.

A frustrated worshiper

2007-11-11T13:08:00.000-05:00

Today I felt like I needed to find a good Sunday morning meeting—one to take the place of what used to be my practice of going to church. I felt the need to commune with my Higher Power and practice some grateful worship and adoration. I haven't been going to church since I long ago in frustration suspended my search for a place of worship that meets my wants. I recalled a "God As I Understand Him" meeting that I spoke at years ago. I was asked to speak on the God of my understanding for about 20-25 minutes. This was in my local clubhouse.

Unfortunately, this is the same clubhouse I despaired of a couple of weeks ago. I went anyway, for the first time since that post. I wish after the meeting got going that I'd tried a new and different meeting.

The speaker was someone who sends drug addicts to A.A. meetings in his professional capacity. He said he was currently working with 33 addicts, had told them all they should be going to A.A. and not a single one was! [His emphasis, not mine.] Did he listen to me read the Singleness of Purpose card (i.e., the Blue Card) he'd handed to me and ask me to read? He made many references to people and things that I didn't understand and left a number of thoughts unfinished, saying, "Well, you know how it is...." I wanted to loudly say, "Actually, I don't; please tell me." But I practiced some restraint instead. Or was it more like cowardice? He talked about getting physically ill and being put on some unnamed medication. He warned us all very strongly that we simply cannot medications that are prescribed for us. Which is total hooey, IMNSHO!

I did share in the second half of the meeting, mostly about how it is possible and sometimes even necessary for us to take medications as prescribed, once the corresponding illnesses have been properly diagnosed by a competent professional. I made reference to the pamphlet, The A.A. Member—Medications and Other Drugs. Someone with 42 days sober who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder really heard me and came up to me after the meeting asking again for the name of the pamphlet. We looked for it in the literature rack, but it wasn't there. She was going to go home and look for it on the aa.org website, so I'm glad to see that it's there.

So perhaps some good came out of my going. I'm glad to have been able to help, and it made me feel good to share what I did without being explicitly critical of our speaker.

Prayers needed

2007-11-10T22:54:00.000-05:00

My dear friend the Junky's Wife and her husband G need all the prayers they can get. What she already knew became undeniable a couple of weeks ago, and I feel awful that I haven't been keeping up with her blog.

Bloggers beware!

2007-11-10T16:20:00.000-05:00

Some inconsiderate peabrain has been heinously using a bot to SPAM-comment on my other [real-life] blog. I have received literally thousands of comments, almost 10,000 so far. Fortunately I turned on comment moderation after receiving between 1,000 and 2,000 of these, each of which I now have to delete individually. After turning on comment moderation, I received another 7,500 or so, each of which has to be rejected. This part at least I can do 300 at a time, although several times I accidentally clicked on Publish rather than Reject, giving myself almost 1,000 more that I will have to individually delete. I hope I didn't accidentally reject any real comments while doing so. After a while, the mind turns to mush, looking at all these repeating comments with their links to sex sites and sites hawking Viagra, Cialis and who knows what other crap. And while I'm busy doing this, at least half my mind turns to dreaming up horrible punishments that I'd like to inflict on the kind of person that does this.

So, before this happens to YOU, turn on comment moderation. Do it now! Learn from my misfortune. This particular bot was posting an average of over 100 SPAM comments per hour. It doesn't take long for any particular blog to be overwhelmed. It makes dealing with Mickey seem like a walk in the park.

Updated 4 hours later:

I should have also changed my comments settings to require word verification. Doh! That's the whole point of this setting—to prevent bots from posting comments. I am really getting on in years, at least mentally.

Humility

2007-11-09T12:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Sharon over at Fellow Traveler posted three definitions of humility. I was inspired to briefly research the various definitions of humility given in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions.

Sharon likes the definition of humility as being right-sized. The 12&12 has that definition: "We found many in A.A, who once thought as we did. They helped us to get down to our right size. By their example they showed us that humility and intellect could be compatible, provided we placed humility first" (p. 30, in the essay on Step 2). The implication seems to be that our intellects easily come into conflict with being humble. That's certainly true for me—I don't have much humility when, as usual, I think I have all (or even some of) the answers.

Interestingly, the essay on Step 1 contains only a single reference to humility, despite the fact the summary for Step 1 in the Table of Contents on p. 5 contains what seems like a major point: "Relation of humility to sobriety." The essay says, "We know that little good can come to any alcoholic who joins A.A. unless he has first accepted his devastating weakness and all its consequences. Until he so humbles himself, his sobriety— if any— will be precarious."

Page 48, on Step 4, says humility consists of getting perspective on ourselves: "For we had started to get perspective on ourselves, which is another way of saying that we were gaining in humility." Or another way of saying right-sized.

My personal favorite is on p. 58 (Step 5): "Another great dividend we may expect from confiding our defects to another human being is humility—a word often misunderstood. To those who have made progress in A.A., it amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are, followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be. Therefore, our first practical move toward humility must consist of recognizing our deficiencies." It's no coincidence, I'm sure, that the closest feeling to humility I think I ever experienced came immediately after I had completed my 5th Step. I felt—and still feel—that for the first time in my life I had come to see myself in true relationship to my Higher Power. How much more right-sized can one be?

Page 64 (Step 6) makes it clear that humility is necessary for that daily reprieve we all seek: "As they [men and women who pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy their lives] are humbled by the terrific beating administered by alcohol, the grace of God can enter them and expel their obsession." This point is reiterated on pages 72-73 (Step 7): "Every newcomer in Alcoholics Anonymous is told, and soon realizes for himself, that his humble admission of powerlessness over alcohol is his first step toward liberation from its paralyzing grip."

Page 72 says the "basic ingredient of all humility" is a "desire to seek and do God's will." This is from the essay on Step 7, which is of course the only step that actually mentions humility. This essay mentions humility more often than any other, though most of these mentions didn't help me in trying to define humility.

Page 98 (Step 11) says that "self-searching... is a step in the development of that kind of humility that makes it possible for us to receive God's help. Yet it is only a step." It seems obvious that conscious contact with a Higher Power through prayer and meditation couldn't help but enhance our humility.

Page 149 (Tradition 4), says that that ability to laugh at oneself is "the very acme of humility." I like this a lot. I think it makes a very important point about humility. We instinctively distrust people who are unable to laugh at themselves.

Pag 187 (Tradition 12) says that "anonymity is real humility at work. It is an all-pervading spiritual quality which today keynotes A.A. life everywhere. Moved by the spirit of anonymity, we try to give up our natural desires for personal distinction as A.A. members both among fellow alcoholics and before the general public." By today, Bill meant in the 1950's. But today (by which I mean today) I don't know that the same could be said. Is the spirit of anonymity truly pervading our A.A. lives? Does it keynote our blogging on this most public and widely read of modern media? Does it bear any relation at all to what the press has to say about celebrity drunks?

The danger of ignoring these lessons, of not making the effort to acheive true humility, whatever our definition, is clear:

Unless each A.A. member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles.

The same stern threat applies to the group itself. Unless there is approximate conformity to A.A.'s Twelve Traditions, the group, too, can deteriorate and die. So we of A.A. do obey spiritual principles, first because we must, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such obedience brings. Great suffering and great love are A.A.'s disciplinarians; we need no others.

Wisdom of the Rooms

2007-11-08T17:39:00.000-05:00

No comment necessary.

A spiritual experience

2007-11-07T13:11:00.000-05:00

I attended a Came to Believe meeting several nights ago. This meeting's format is for a guest speaker to select one story from the booklet of the same name that we read as a group, to give a short lead, then to open the floor for comments.

After the lead, someone shared about his belief that one of his grandparents had helped him get sober, even though that grandparent was not alive at the time. It brought back a memory from my early sobriety, about which I shared later in the meeting.

It was July 1995. I had just under three years of sobriety. I was seeing my therapist, Macron Larks, and dealing with some sexual issues (among other things). I recalled to Mac that after my grandmother—who had died in 1981, 11 years before I stopped drinking—had gotten a drink or two under her belt at family gatherings, she would sometimes start muttering, half under her breath, about a certain unnamed minister she obviously didn't care for at all. Eventually I got the impression—I forget how or where—that there was some kind of sexual abuse involved.

When Mac heard this, he immediately gave me an assignment: to find out all I could about this incident. So I went to my mother's youngest sister, with whom I have always had a close and open relationship. She immediately and without hestitation told me all she knew.

In high school, my grandmother attended a religious boarding school several hundred kilometers from her home. Shortly before graduation, her mother died (her father was already dead) and she returned home to an older sister who was still living in the house they'd grown up in. One night her sister invited their former pastor, who happened to be passing through town, to stay with them. While there, he entered my grandmother's bedroom and sexually molested her. This was all my aunt could tell me.

It just so happened that my sponsor at the time was a minister of the same religious denomination. One of his assignments at the time was curator of the church archives. I decided to go see what more I could find out in these archives about the man who had abused my grandmother. I made an appointment to meet with my sponsor so he could give me a brief orientation as to what was available and how to find things.

My sponsor had absolutely no idea why I was there or what I was looking for. I don't remember everything he told me, but I vividly remember the moment when he went to a set of filing drawers, very similar to a card catalog in a library¹. It was a central index to the information contained in the archives. There were several cabinets of drawers, and several drawers per cabinet, each presumably filled with 3 x 5 index cards. There were thousands of cards, perhaps even tens of thousands. Each contained somebody's name, or a topic, or a description of an event. He picked a drawer at random, opened it and pulled out a single card from the middle of the drawer to show me what a typical card contained.

The card he pulled was the one for my grandmother. Since it was my mother's mother, he didn't even recognize that she was related to me until I told him.

I couldn't believe it. It's still unbelievable. When I shared about this in the meeting last week, I got shivers and a large gasp went up from the group. I got shivers again just now, blogging about it.

Do you suppose my Higher Power thought I was on the right track?

¹Remember these? They contained drawers full of 3x5 cards, one per book, organized by subject and/or author.

Some meetings are better than others

2007-10-24T09:25:00.000-04:00

I've been attending a particular Tuesday night meeting at the local clubhouse, primarily because my sponsor likes to go there. Last night was my fourth visit recently. I saw The Rock the first time, but haven't seen him since.

I was reminded last night of why I don't like going there. The speaker, who had a real wise-guy attitude, started off by announcing that he hadn't been to a meeting in a year. Within minutes he was trashing the 5th Tradition, without apology, saying that after picking up a drink, everybody does something else whether it's drugs, gambling or picking up women. He of course noted that he did all of these. He spent all but the last couple of minutes on his drunkalogue (and drugalogue—fortunately he didn't talk at all about the other two).

I kept thinking, "And this is supposed to help us—and especially the newcomer—stay sober how?" Needless to say, I didn't find much to laugh about in his many funny stories. They seemed mostly to be in his story to entertain his audience. I thought about getting up and walking out while he was still speaking, but didn't. I thought about leaving at the break, but didn't. I also kept wondering throughout how much of this was purely my negativity rather than just a bad job by an unsober person. I did express my opinion to Mr Riches-to-Rags, who was there.

It wasn't all bad. I heard a couple of good comments after the break and got to talk for a few minutes to a man who was District Treasurer when I was GSR eight years ago but haven't seen since. I learned that he's been very active in Intergroup since then. He's a good candidate to speak for me sometime.

Attitudes towards meetings

2007-10-19T09:23:00.000-04:00

Last night's speaker identified three phases he went through in his attitude towards A.A. meetings. These all occurred during the first 11 months of his sobriety, while he was in prison. He was in a work release program where, starting with one night a week, they gradually increased the number of nights he was allowed out to attend A.A. meetings, as he continued to not screw up.

At first, he said, he went because he had to. He hated being there and kept thinking, "Is this what my life has come to? To hang out with a bunch of alcoholics?" After a while he entered the second phase, where he realized that he always felt better while at a meeting. He still would have preferred not to go at all, but had to admit that it wasn't so bad. Finally, towards the end of his 11 months, he started looking forward to going to meetings—phase three.

This reminded me of what I was told in early sobriety: there are only two times I needed to go to a meeting: (1) when I wanted to and (2) when I didn't want to. In early sobriety, the number of times I went for the second reason exceeded the number of times I went for the first, but quite a lot. At some point, years ago, that changed. Now I rarely go for the second reason (though it does happen, usually when I'm thinking, "I've got better things to do").

After a number of years of sobriety, I recognized a fourth phase in my attitude toward meetings, namely, to go because I might have something to offer a newcomer, because I might be able to help someone who is struggling. For me, this brings the deepest satisfaction of all.

Ruminations on Beauty

2007-10-17T22:27:00.000-04:00

This was the title of a post by the Junky's Wife two months ago. I've been cogitating on it ever since I read it without knowing why. A couple of days ago it hit me.

Some background. For some time now, I've been trying to walk a couple miles a day, just on the general principle that since I have a pure desk job, it's good for me—physically, mentally and emotionally. Usually these were early in the morning or very late in the afternoon. Lately, I've taken to going on hour-long walks in the middle of the day. Being self-employed and setting my own hours, this is relatively easy for me. And I've been taking my camera.

It takes me twice as long, I probably don't cover as much ground, but it's been very very nice for keeping me somewhat grounded. I don't think about anything but what's around me and what might make a good photograph. And I've gotten some good ones. I'm actually pretty good at it, I think (one from today is above, to the right).

What hit me a couple of days ago is that this has become a form of meditation for me, meditation on beauty. As JW said in her post:

So why is beauty so important? And why is beauty so important to me?

Beauty, I guess, gives me that god-feeling...that moment when you recognize something beautiful, when it kind of catches your breath and pulls at your guts, or points at some emptiness in your guts that feels so essential to living...it makes me feel aware of something bigger than myself.

Thanks, JW, that really hit the spot!

Late for a meeting

2007-10-17T21:55:00.000-04:00

I walked into my meeting tonight late, as they were just starting. I hate being late, especially when the only reason is because I didn't plan my time well. Even more so when, like tonight, it's my first time at the group. I got to introduce myself by saying my name and that it was my first time there. They welcomed me and then I remembered to add, "I'm an alcoholic." Somebody replied, "Good, at least you know that." Everyone—including me—laughed.

A. was celebrating five years. Assuming I was a newcomer, she turned to me after announcing it, looked me in the eye and said, "It really does work." I smiled inwardly and managed to keep to myself the fact that I had 15 years, even when I shared. Isn't amazing how the ego can pick up on the smallest things and keep reminding one of them all through the meeting?

My prize

2007-10-15T17:12:00.000-04:00

If you've been paying very close attention, you know I won a prize over at the Daily Piglet. Well, after a missed connection, my prize arrived in the mail the other day. You can see a picture of it to the left. Piglet told me she perused my blog to get an idea of what would be a good gift and, in the end, it was a toss-up between this and a night-light replica of the leg lamp from the movie A Christmas Story. To the right you can see a picture of the prize I didn't win.

My first thought on opening the package was, "Is it that obvious, just from reading my blog?" Who better to ask than Mr. Sarcastic Ball. You can see his answer here in the picture to the left.

In return for her offer that let me win this wonderful prize, I gave her a chance to win something back (if you follow all the links you'll see I challenged to figure out how I knew the answer to her question). She succeeded. So now I get to look over her blog and see what might make an appropriate prize for her. Any and all suggestions from her friends (and enemies) are welcome. Please e-mail them to me privately rather than post them here, so she can have the same delightful sense of surprise that I got to experience.

My old friend Pain

2007-10-15T14:42:00.000-04:00

The last 43½ hours have not been good ones for me emotionally. Nimue and I had a big confrontation Saturday night. She insisted on having her way. I refused to give in. She said she was going to stand next to me, hammering away at me verbally, till I "cooperated." I got in my car and went to a meeting, which helped a little. Sure beats what I would have done 16 years ago: gotten in my car and gone to a bar.

Yesterday, I was at the 4th Step workshop I mentioned in my last post for most of the afternoon. I had picked out a meeting to go to Sunday night and then picked out a park to stop in on the way to the meeting from the workshop. I took a bunch of photographs (I'm an avid if amateur photographer). After the meeting, my old friend ChinBeard took me aside and chewed me out. He asked why I would want to continue for two years to stay with someone who didn't want to live with me. He offered to let me live with him and he would abuse me instead of Nimue. He offered to pray for God to send me even more pain, so I would finally do something. He carried on for almost 10 minutes, very brutally, shredding every "but" that I could come up with. Don't you just hate it sometimes when people love you enough to do that? Damn!

What is ANA?

2007-10-15T13:58:00.000-04:00

At a 4th Step workshop I attended yesterday, we heard from four speakers. All were good. The two women obviously had very, very solid step-work backgrounds. One man spoke very knowledgeably and intelligently about the 4th step. The other man spoke movingly from the heart. I talked for a while afterwards with H., one of the women who spoke (the other woman who spoke was her sponsor's sponsor).

She first started working the steps after relapsing and then getting involved with something called "ANA." She said it was another Twelve Step fellowship, and made it sound like a sort of Back to Basics movement for any kind of addiction, with no distinction between alcohol and drugs, for example.

When I Googled for ANA, I didn't find anything like what she was describing. The most relevant links returned was to ANA Treatment Centres, a British chain of rehabs. I didn't see any explanation of why they use "ANA" in their name, but from some of the description, I can see that it might be related.

The next most closely related was for "my friend Ana." (Well, at least I learned one new thing today!)

Does anyone know any more about this? That is, about the fellowship H. was talking about, not about my friend Ana.

Why "pigeons"?

2007-10-13T11:24:00.000-04:00

Kathy Lynne wants to know, "Why pigeons?" and adding, "I don't like that."

I don't remember. I do remember seeing something once about where the term came from and, after reading it, feeling that it's not the pejorative term I had previously thought. Where was that article? AAHistoryLovers? Oh yes, here's the post that asked a question similar to Kathy Lynne's and here's the one response it got.

To summarize, the term appears to have originated with Dr. Bob and was in use by 1940. Dr. Bob was heavily into using slang. He called Anne, his wife, "the skirt" or "the little woman" and a kiss "the slobber." When he learned that Benjamin Franklin [follow this link: it has excellent information] had once observed that drunks appeared "pigeon-eyed," it immediately followed that they must be "pigeons". He also referred to sponsees as "cookies." Despite the apocryphal and derogatory explanations one hears from time to time in the rooms of A.A.—that pigeons are called that because they fly around and shit all over everyone, or because if you give them a message they deliver it somewhere but never get the message themselves—the term was originally meant endearingly.

I actually use the term "sponsee" in most of my conversation. But I prefer "pigeon" (and use it more often in writing since I have time to think about it) because it's sort of metaphorical and more colorful rather than technically accurate. When I use it I certainly do not intend it to be derogatory.

If you have a subscription to the A.A Grapevine's Digital Archive, you can find further discussion of this topic in the following articles:

October 1957, "From the Grass Roots"
September 1963, "At No Cost to Anyone, Here Are Some Free Translations"
April 1979, "Pigeons"
July 1980, letter from C.B.
November 1980, letter from B.M.
November 1980, letter from L.M.
April 1986, "Pigeonperson"
September 1986, letter from S.M.

This is a list of references I got from the first of the two AAHistoryLovers posts I noted above. After reading them, I'm still not inclined to change my opinion, though there are some good reasons not to use the term.

P.S. There may be other articles and letters among the 262 that were returned when I searched the archive for the term "pigeon."

Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you

2007-10-12T23:10:00.000-04:00

As predicted, I went to a meeting tonight with my new pigeon, Overseer. That's actually the name of the position of responsibility he has at the rehab he's in—Overseer. I was taken aback when he casually mentioned this to me on the way to the meeting. He's black, and to me this term has strong slavery connotations. I was more than taken aback; I was stunned. I said so, and he agreed, but then used the term again in a completely un-self-conscious way. So that's what his nom de blog is going to be.

We stood in the parking lot for a few minutes talking about where he is in recovery and what's going on. He clearly doesn't know how to be still and likes to talk too much. At least he knows this about himself. And was able to sit in the meeting and just listen, at my mild suggestion.

Somehow in the parking lot we wound up on the subject of prayer. I talked to him about my experience praying for people toward whom I have resentments. I told him how it took over a year of praying to heal my resentments over people like my ex-wife, Bitter Cookie; Idlerich, the boyfriend she left me for and Deadbeat, Nimue's ex-husband (can you tell I'm not 100% over them?). I told him how important it was to continue even when we don't feel like praying at all, that's it important to just mouth the words if that's all we can do. Then we went in to the meeting.

It was a Big Book discussion meeting. And, of all things, we read the story "Bondage of Self." It's amazing that it was a story from beyond the first 164 pages to begin with; around here the stories are only rarely read in meetings. But that is was this story? Wow!

For those of you not familiar with this particular story, here's a excerpt that will show its relevance:

If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don't really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.

Well, as I always say when we read this story, the author must have been a spiritual giant if she got that kind of result in just two weeks (the particular resentment she had was one of 25 years against her mother). But it can still work for the rest of us; it just takes a little longer.

Good discussion after the reading too. I think maybe I'll go back.

Why I don't drink non-alcoholic drinks

2007-10-12T22:38:00.000-04:00

Anybeth—who I keep wanting to call "Amy Beth"—commented on my post Mmmmm, Mexican food saying that "a non-alcoholic margarita would taste great." I want to clarify why I ended my original post by saying, "Naw, I think I'll just stick to their food." This is not to criticize Anybeth in any way; I'm hope she'll be able to find some of those margaritas and enjoy them without consequence. But I can't.

For me it would be too much like, too close to actual drinking. More and more questions like those I started asking at the end of that post would begin to fill my head and get me to thinking. I would start remembering all those wonderful times I had when I was out there—whether they were really there or not. Soon I would be stealing a little of what the Big Book on page 101 calls vicarious pleasure from the atmosphere. And next thing you know, I would say to myself in the most casual way, "It won't burn me this time; so here's how!" And after the third or fourth, I'd be pounding on the bar and saying to myself, "For God's sake, how did I ever get started again?" Only to have that thought supplanted by "Well, I'll stop with the sixth drink." Or "What's the use anyhow?" (p. 24)

For me, this could easily be just how it happens. So, again, and just for me, I really do need to stick to only the food. And a soft drink or glass of water.

An okay day

2007-10-12T12:37:00.000-04:00

Other than being late for work, it hasn't been a bad day. Had a little breakthrough on one of the problems I've been working on (professionally). Had a cheap but tasty lunch of Phad Thai. Tonight I will take my new pigeon to a meeting and spend a little time getting to know him and on the way will probably grab a slightly more expensive salad for dinner.

Since I was running late, I decided to shortcut my morning routine and thereby inadvertently forgot my morning prayers. Despite that, the universe, a.k.a. my Higher Power, in the form of today's entry from Daily Reflections, is apparently telling me I'm on the right track:

Curbing Rashness
When we speak or act hastily or rashly, the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates on the spot.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 91
Being fair-minded and tolerant is a goal toward which I must work daily. I ask God, as I understand Him, to help me to be loving and tolerant to my loved ones, and to those with whom I am in close contact. I ask for guidance to curb my speech when I am agitated, and I take a moment to reflect on the emotional upheaval my words may cause, not only to someone else, but also to myself. Prayer, meditation and inventories are the key to sound thinking and positive action for me.

Sorta sounds like what I was saying yesterday, doesn't it?

The Riddling Bridge Troll

2007-10-11T22:47:00.000-04:00

This is so great, I can't resist sharing it. The Junky's Wife said yesterday of her drug addict husband, "He's a riddling bridge troll I've got to get past before I can move on with my life, and the riddles he keeps coming up with stump me again and again."

This kind of insightful writing makes me very glad I don't have to live with an addict / alcoholic. I suppose it should give me some kind of sympathy for Nimue, but right now I'm only feeling it for JW and all her addict-married friends.

Mmmmm, Mexican food

2007-10-11T13:45:00.000-04:00

Last night I ate at a nearby Mexican restaurant that's new to the neighborhood. I noticed going in that they offer "COMPLIMENTARY MARGARITAS!" My waiter offered me one, which I politely turned down. After leaving, I was perusing their take-out menu and noticed it's a BYOB place. What kind of Margaritas would those be? Not the kind I used to drink! I wonder what they taste like? I wonder if they're non-alcoholic? They must be. If so, would it be alright for me to have one?

Naw, I think I'll just stick to their food.

A new pigeon

2007-10-11T11:56:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, I posted that a man had asked me to sponsor him after I spoke at a Friday step meeting. Yesterday, he called. He's 2½ weeks into rehab and not sure how much longer he'll be there. It's at least his second time around. He used to think he was a drug addict, but has since discovered that he's more of an alcoholic; he only picks up the drugs after he's been drinking. He's particularly concerned about his family: a girlfriend he'd left for another woman and their children. He'd been reading the chapter "The Family Afterward" from the Big Book wanted to know if that was a good idea. My answer was that there's nothing wrong with reading that, but I also suggested "A Vision For You". I agreed to be his temporary sponsor. Tomorrow night I hope to be able to pick him, take him to a meeting and spend a little time getting to know him. Maybe after that, I'll know what pseudonym to give him.

Powerless

2007-10-11T11:26:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking it would probably be a good idea to work the steps on my relationship with Nimue. My sponsor, The Rock, agreed. So I guess I don't have any more excuses.

This is not going to be fun. Already I dread the 9^th step, where I know I'll be having to make some amends I don't want to. Well, I just have to do what I did my first time through the steps (though then it was the 5^th step I feared—is this a form of progress?): do them one at a time.

I know I'm powerless over most of what it is that I think bothers me (I'm probably wrong). I can't control what she says, what she does, what she thinks, what she feels, what her attitude is, or how she's raising her adult children. I can't control the expression on her face. I can't control the sarcastic, self-righteous edge in her voice when she's speaking to me.

What I really, really, really need to do is stop simply reacting to all these things. For Pete's sake, when I've just had an altercation with her, my blood pressure goes up 30 points. I need to insert a pause, to let HP insert a little pause. Give me time to have a little think about what I do or say next. Not to mention give my blood pressure a few moments to recover.

I can't manage this relationship. All I can try to manage, with HP's help, is how I am in this relationship, what I do, what I say. I've been doing the best I can for 8 years, 4 months and 11 days. Not completely on my own, with some occasional requests for assistance. But whatever it is that I've been doing clearly is working. Time for a new approach.

Nothing new here. I've known all this for some time. What's different now is that I've made a decision to change what I'm doing. I'm not exactly sure what yet, but stay tuned and find out.

Yesterday's Daily Reflections:

Fixing Me, Not You
If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also.
— Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 90
What a freedom I felt when this passage was pointed out to me! Suddenly I saw that I could do something about my anger, I could fix me, instead of trying to fix them. I believe that there are no exceptions to the axiom. When I am angry, my anger is always self-centered. I must keep reminding myself that I am human, that I am doing the best I can, even when that best is sometimes poor. So I ask God to remove my anger and truly set me free.

Two good days, ending with a let-down

2007-10-09T13:26:00.001-04:00

I spent Sunday afternoon in a workshop held in the same room I had spoken in Sunday morning. Turnout was disappointing; there were fewer people there for the workshop than for the morning meeting and hardly anyone from the meeting stuck around for the workshop. At least many of the faces were unfamiliar. That's always a good sign. And for those of us who were there, it was good and satisfying workshop.

Last night—Monday—I drove 171 km to attend a District open house followed by a monthly District Committee meeting. Turnout for this was disappointing too: 18 people, including three of us Area officers, who came from out of town: the Delegate, the Alternate Delegate and me, the Chairperson. I spoke for 5 minutes or so about the Area structure: how we're organized for general service at the Area level.

There were two very bright spots in the evening for me. During the open house, which had no program and consisted of us sitting about eating wraps, veggies and dip, pretzels and cookies, I sat and talked for quite a while with a guy I'd never met before. I'll call him Joe.

Early in the conversation Joe asked where I was from, I told him, and then he asked if I'd grown up there. I told him no, and named the town and state I'd grown up. He said, "Oh, I used to live in that state [it's a small state] but I'm not sure where the town is." I explained to him and he responded, "I lived for a while in XYZ, not far from there."

"I don't remember where that is."

"It's right next to the ABC park."

"Oh, that's only a few miles from where I grew up. In fact, when I was a Boy Scout we had an event in that park and I used my first aid training to treat a man who had blown the back of his calf off with a shotgun."

"Well, that's interesting; I was left for dead in that park by some Boy Scouts."

Joe went on to tell me the story, about how he'd been partially crippled by polio and wanted to join to the Boy Scouts as a way of getting some friends just after moving there, how the Boy Scouts—the kids, by themselves, without any adult supervision—had put him through a hazing of having to follow them through the park on his crutches, how they had crossed a old dam with a break in it, which they jumped over, but from which he fell when attempting the jump, landing on his head on the rocks below and knocking himself out, coming to on his back with his face barely out of water, and how the boys had run away and sworn a pact of secrecy among themselves. Needless to say, he never joined the Boy Scouts and none of them became his friend because he eventually named them all and therefore was a snitch.

All this happened the year after I had moved, as a 7-year-old, from across town to 3 or 4 miles from this park, which was practically across the street from where I went to junior high school.

Joe was born in 1945, a few years before I was, and was one of the last people in this country to get polio. He likes to say he got polio from Dr Salk. He and a bunch of others contracted it from a bad batch of polio vaccine as they were rushing the vaccine out to get everyone immunized. Because he had polio, they discovered that he had some other serious problem in his hip and he believes, especially since he regained the use of his legs, that he was better off than he would have been if he hadn't contracted polio.

He's been sober 7 years and married for 30. He married his bartender. They both drank until he got sober. She continued to drink after that and made a lot of disparaging remarks about A.A. and his attendance at meetings. He eventually learned to disengage from this kind of conversation.

Then her best friend, who lived out of state, called and asked his wife to come help her. Her husband was in the hospital dying. Joe's wife went to help out, leaving their two children with him. While away, she watched her best friend's husband turn yellow, swell up and die. A direct result of alcoholism. She stayed an additional two weeks to help her best friend get her feet back on the ground. When she got back home, she asked Joe to take her to a meeting. She's been sober ever since.

Eventually Joe's sponsor told him that it was time for his wife to get a home group.

Joe said, "I'll be happy to help her find a home group."

Joe's sponsor replied, "No, Joe, you don't understand. She's already found a home group and it's yours. Now it's time for you to find a new home group."

So he did.

It turned out that Joe's former home group was one for which I conducted a group inventory a few years ago. It's a Big Book study group and at the time, they were enduring a lot of criticism and were being accused of violating Traditions and being "Big Book Nazis [subscription required to view link]." I like to think that I helped them become confident that there was nothing wrong with their approach to studying the Big Book line by line. It may not be true, but I like to think it anyway.

Interestingly enough, of the 15 local people at the District meeting last night, at least 3 were affiliated with this Big Book study group: their GSR, the District Treasurer and Joe, who was attending as an interested member without any official position. That group must be doing something right!

Unfortunately, at the end of the day I wound up back home. A crowd of teenage boys was in the living room watching Monday Night Football. At 11:45 pm they let out a roar of approval over whatever had just happened and I got up out of bed to go ask them to keep the noise down. Half an hour later, I got up again to go ask a group of them to go somewhere else because their cigarette smoke was blowing in my bedroom window. They agreed to move, but not without a look of disgust and a few murmured words of contempt from my stepson, Thorn. And of course this morning the living room was a mess, with food, clothing and other objects scattered all over and a small ensemble of dining chairs encircling the television. At least no one was asleep on the couch or on the floor. No doubt there were a few more cigarette butts lying around too, since it seems impossible for these boys to do anything else but throw them on the ground. A quick glance about the yard quickly reveals their favorite places to smoke.

Three times in a week

2007-10-09T13:23:00.000-04:00

A week ago Sunday afternoon I spoke for my friend Timber Ruse. We already knew we had a lot in common, but discovered that day that we had both been heavily influenced in our early days of service by the same man: J.J. Rangstorm. It was a typical speaking engagement for this area. Ten minutes or so of preliminaries, followed by me speaking for 20 or 25 minutes, followed by 25-30 minutes of sharing from the floor. I find that I can really only tell part of my story in 20 minutes.

Friday night I had been asked to speak on the first half of the 12th Step. It was, obviously, a step meeting, 1 ½ hours long. After the opening readings, we went around the room reading the first 11 pages of the 12th Step from Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. A pretty normal format so far. Then I shared. The chairperson had asked me to leave no less than 45 minutes for general sharing and that left me 10 minutes. I used 9 of them.

All week long I had been wondering (not for the first time) about what constitutes the "first half" of Step Twelve. I see three parts to it:

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps,

we tried to carry this message to alcoholics,

And practice these principles in all our affairs.

The first two of parts of this step were changed from the Big Book draft manuscript. Instead of spritual awakening we had spiritual experience. Instead of these steps we had this course of action. Instead of to alcholics we had to others, especially alcoholics. The first of these changes occurred between the 1st (1939) and 2nd (1941) printings of the 1st edition. Appendix II, "Spritual Experience", was added at the same time. The latter two occurred before the 1st printing.

We read [just over] half the pages Bill W. devoted to the 12th Step in the 12&12. In these 11 pages, he addresses all three parts of the step. He discusses what a spiritual awakening is, then talks briefly about carrying the message and the attendant joys of that, and finally spends almost 5 pages on how we can practice these principles throughout our life. The remain 9+ pages are devoted to this latter subject as well. So in the end, I talked a little about each part of the 12th step.

The remaining 45 minutes were given over to sharing from the floor. The chairperson carefully timed each to ensure they didn't take more than 3 minutes (and only had to cut one off). There were about 50 people in attendance, only two or three of whom I already knew, and almost everyone got a chance to share.

It was good meeting and I felt pretty good about how I used my time. One man came up to me afterwards and asked for my phone number, which I of course gave to him. He lives near where my home group meets and will be moving back after he finishes his course of treatment at the rehab in the part of town in which I spoke. Another man asked me to sponsor him. Due to my service commitments, I have to be careful about taking on new pigeons, so I also gave him my number and asked him to call me, thinking we could discuss what was entailed in a sponsor-sponsee relationship and possibly to offer to be his temporary sponsor. (I haven't heard from either one.)

Sunday morning I drove 112 km to speak for the third time in the week. I was told I could take as much of the hour as I wanted and spoke for about 40 minutes. It's so much more satisfying to me personally to speak for 40 minutes rather than 20. I felt like everything came out really well and this was confirmed by some reactions I got afterwards. Clearly my Higher Power had led me to say some things that were inspirational, at least to a few people there.

Speaking

2007-10-09T10:02:00.000-04:00

Throughout my sobriety, I've had the good fortune to be asked to speak frequently. The first time I spoke was for a former high school teacher of mine who had 8 months of sobriety. The day I was to speak was my 89th day of sobriety and he nearly panicked when he realized that I had less than the required 90 days. The most recent time I spoke was Sunday, for the third time in a week. In between I've probably averaged speaking once a month or so, which makes a total of almost 200 times.

I enjoy speaking. I enjoyed it less in the beginning than I do now. But even early on, for whatever reason, I didn't get particularly nervous. These days I look forward to it with a kind of eager anticipation. There's a certain edge to the feeling, but it's not the same as being nervous. It's more that I want very much to have a positive impact on people's sobriety. Not on everyone, but just on one or two or, if I'm really lucky, a few. Whether they're new to the program and not sure they belong, or have been around longer than I have and are wondering, "Is this all there is?" I always pray that my Higher Power put the right words in my mouth and that someone get something out of whatever words come out of my mouth.

I only planned what I wanted to say once. I felt completely ineffective that time and no one came up afterward to say anything that might have dissuaded me from that opinion. I've seen others plan what they're going to say and make it work, but that's not for me. Not that I don't think about what I'm going to say. I usually—if I have enough advance notice—spend a lot of time thinking about it. Then in the event, some of the things I've thought about come out and others don't. Afterwards, I normally have thoughts like "I should have said this…" and "I wish I'd said that…" but I've learned to just let those thoughts go.

My story always comes out different—different from any thoughts I might have had about how it would go, and different from any time I've told it before. I usually feel pretty good about how things went when I'm done. One or two people will normally approach me who have obviously been affected, in a good way, by what I've said. It's gratifying and I'm grateful that the experience nearly always has a positive effect on me, and usually on one or two others as well.

R.I.P., Tom F.

2007-10-06T15:35:00.000-04:00

I just learned that Tom Florentine passed away in his sleep last night. Over the five years I've known him, he'd had several serious heart operations. He was very lucky not to have died sooner and, no doubt, lucky to have died so peacefully. He was a DCM during my first panel as Area officer. A very friendly guy, quiet, but with a great sense of humor. He had a full head of pure white hair. I remember being surprised to learn that this "older gentleman" (and he was a true gentleman) was a couple of years younger than I am. He was the most supportive DCM I've known and was always making nice comments, sending me e-mails or including notes in his snail-mail about the great job I was doing. Of course, he was saying the same things to the other officers as well, though I didn't know for sure that till today.

Our Delegate said about him, "He was always enthusiastic about service" and pointed out that he had just agreed to serve as moderator to one of our roundtables at this year's annual Convention. Our Area Secretary said, "We have all lost a dedicated member of A.A.; he provided us with a wonderful example that service truly is gratitude in action" and noted that she had just e-mailed him asking him undertake another job at the Convention. No doubt he would have accepted; but I doubt I ever even got the message.

Good-bye, Tom! No doubt he's already asking what service positions are available in heaven.

Lunch with a close friend

2007-10-05T15:39:00.000-04:00

[Please note that I updated yesterday's post, Cunning, Baffling, Powerful and BRUTAL, with a few more details today. Just in case anyone cares, LOL.]

Last time I posted about my on-going struggle to get some prescriptions filled, I had given up and gotten most of them (all but the Prozac) filled at a local pharmacy. Surprise, surprise, I received all the refills from Caremark in the mail the very next day. I refused the package and had them sent back to Caremark. Now I'm planning to pre-emptively write a letter to them explaining why I have returned and telling them not to bill me. But of course, they'll bill me anyway and then we can fight about that. At least the charges will be on my credit card and that gives me an advantage in disputing them.

Today I had lunch with Graven Latte and gave him a quick summary of this saga, as well as my euphoria for the six or seven weeks following my sudden and unexpected cessation of being on Prozac, my feeling "restless, irritable and discontent" for the last 10 days or so and some account of my continuing conflicts with Nimue.

He asked what my plan was. Thank you for asking, Graven. I hadn't really thought completely through what my plan was till you asked. For now, I'm not going back on Prozac. I'm not ready to give up the wonderful sleep I am getting at night, especially since I'm not convinced that much my malcontentedness is due to not being on Prozac. If I do eventually decide to go back onto Prozac, it will be under the supervision of a professional (a shout-out to Doctor A for his advice on this matter).

As for my marriage, I'm not ready to do anything but wait for now. First of all, as Graven so quickly pointed out, now is not the time for me to be making any major decisions. Second, a few months ago I had reached a point where I was ready to take some drastic action. I knew enough to take a few days to sleep on my decision before putting it into effect, and told some people that was what I was doing. Within a week, I had lost my resolve and took that, again at the suggestion of people close to me, as meaning it was not yet time to take irretrievable action. Those I trust most—more than one of them—suggest independently that when the time comes to get drastic, it will be unquestionably the right thing for me to do. I have not regained anything like the resolve I had at that time, despite the horrible treatment I am getting at times. In the meantime, I will continue praying about this relationship. Now that's something that we agree on: me and everyone I listen to. I had actually lost heart in doing so, and was only mouthing the words, but a little bit of my former heart is coming back. I glad, and I'm sad. Glad because my heart coming back means the prayer is working. Sad because I fear that as I start to feel a little bit more for her, I'll let my guard down yet again and once more pay a price for letting her in.

I guess this was one of the things that had such an impact on me in reading The Junky's Wife's blog yesterday: she has put up some boundaries, and has started sticking to them. And overall, her life appears to be getting better, when her junkie husband is or not. I'm jealous.

More on Anonymity

2007-10-05T09:40:00.000-04:00

This post started out as a comment inresponse to Kathy Lynne's comment on my post Online Anonymity, but it got so long I decided to post it rather than leave it buried in the comments. So here it is.

Dear Kathy Lynne,

Am I saying that a person can't talk about the fact that he or she is in recovery? No, absolutely not.

Am I saying that a person can't say that he or she is a member of A.A.? Well, it depends. Most obviously it depends on the context within which the person is speaking.
If that person is 12th-stepping another alcoholic one on one, why then, yes, of course it's appropriate to mention that it was through A.A that he or she got sober. However, if that person is being interviewed for publication in a newspaper, on the radio, on television, in a book, in a film, for the BBC Online or—as far as I'm concerned—posting on a personally identifiable blog, then no, it's not appropriate to mention that fact.

Between these two examples there's a lot of territory, much of it gray. I've spoken of my recovery through A.A. to some fairly large groups of non-alcoholics. I thought it was okay because of the circumstances, the nature of the event and the audience. One instance that comes to mind was a testimonial I gave in early recovery before a few dozen like-minded but primarily non-alcoholic fellow travelers at a week-long religious retreat. Incidentally, that testimonial was recorded and today, with my current understanding of the 11th Tradition, I would either insist on it not being recorded or give a testimonial that did not mention A.A. explicitly.
I've avoided speaking of my association with A.A. to other audiences because of the differing circumstances, the differing nature of the event and the differing audience. An example of this would be sharing at the microphone at one of my religious denomination's conventions, whether it were being recorded or not. If it were relevant, I might mention A.A. in general but I would certainly not mention my membership in A.A. Even one on one, when the person I'm talking to obviously has no interest in or need to be getting sober and I know of no one close to them that might be helped indirectly, I'll leave my being in A.A. out of the discussion.

I held a job recently where most people—there were 14 of us in all—knew that I was involved in volunteer work. Only one—my brother—might have known that most of this was A.A. service (when pressed about what I am doing and I don't want to reveal my association with A.A., I usually say I am doing volunteer work in the field of education and prevention of alcoholism). The editor of our company newsletter, which has a very small circulation but is also published on the World Wide Web, asked a couple of us to write about our volunteer work. Instead of writing about what I was then actively engaged in—A.A. service—I wrote about something I had been involved in several years earlier: the establishment of an orphanage for homeless children in Nepal.
Less obviously but perhaps more imporant than the context within which the person is speaking is the motivation behind what he or she is saying.
Whenever I am moved to speak about my involvement in A.A., I try to look honestly at why I am so moved. Is it because it will make me look good? Is it because I want people to know I'm in A.A.? So they'll believe that I practice what I preach? Am I feeling proud of being in A.A.? If so, then these are indications that it's my will I'm thinking of exercising and that it's probably not a good idea to say what I'm thinking of saying.
Is it because I see an opportunity to carry the message to a sick and suffering alcoholic? Is it because I of the tremendous and ever-increasing debt I owe to A.A.? Am I feeling humble? If so, then perhaps it is appropriate to break my anonymity. As I've pointed out before, I'm one of those rare alcoholics—at least in this part of the world—that uses my full name when I introduce myself at meetings and other A.A. events (unless they are being recorded).
Please keep in mind that this is my interpretation of the 11th Tradition, although, to be completely frank, you'd have a very hard time convincing me otherwise. If you do disagree with me, I'd be very interested in hearing about and trying to understand how you reconcile your opinions with the 11th Tradition.

Finally, it's interesting that you should mention Craig Ferguson. I watched that monologue the night it aired. I blogged about it on 9 August. You can see exactly what I think about what he said by reading my post.
Yours in sobriety,
Trinker

I'm interested in other opinions not only from Kathy Lynne, but from anyone who has something different and intelligent to say about Tradition XI (access to link requires subscription).

Cunning, baffling, powerful and BRUTAL

2007-10-04T22:05:00.001-04:00

I spent a good chunk of time today reading the last couple months' worth of posts from The Junky's Wife. She's a powerful writer with powerful things to say. She's brutally honest about herself. It was an insightful, but not an uplifting experience. I am not a junkie, never have been—not even remotely in the same vicinity—and have never really been close to one. I'm sure I can never understand her world, but I think a big dose of reading her blog gave me some feeling for the life of a junkie's wife.

I think she could write a good book. These blog entries reminded me of A Million Little Pieces which, despite the controversy around it, is an interesting read (so long as you don't worry too much about what's fact and what's fiction).

At my A.A. meeting tonight, I heard a guy I'd never met before. He was introduced by someone I've known since I got sober as someone who was there when she started coming around in 1986. I started off looking forward to hearing a good strong message of long-term sobriety. Somewhere along the way, he took a left turn. Yes, he'd gotten sober in 1986 (shortly before my friend I guess). In 1996 he stopped going to meetings. In 2003 he was prescribed Percocet and starting abusing it. He wound up buying it on the street—$5 a pill—and consuming up to 150 of them a day. He took out three business loans to pay for his addiction, and tried to hide everything from his family. He did this quite successfully, at least until recently. A few months ago, he began not feeling well: he was short of breath and had no energy. It got so bad while on vacation that he finally decided to ask his wife to take him to the hospital. Turns out he'd had a heart attack and didn't even know it. At that point the jig was up. He came partially clean to his wife ~~a while ago~~ at the time and, he says, completely clean to her ~~a few months ago~~ when she started asking questions about certain business practices he had started in order to hide what he was doing from her. At his wife's request, he hasn't said anything to his children. Today he has 92 days clean and sober. This man, like the Junky's Wife, was brutally honest. It was not an uplifting story, though I am glad he made it back and now has a second chance. I was also grateful to be reminded of the kind of thing that's out there waiting for me if I pick up.

The most painful thing I heard was how he clung to his almost 20 years of sobriety. Even though he wasn't able to string them all together, he said, it's a one day at a time program and he still has nearly 20 years' worth of days. How sad! I don't know him well enough to judge accurately, but I can't help wondering how long it will be before he's willing to settle for the 92 days that he really has.

Updated 05 October 2007 15:22:
As a result of a memory lapse, I couldn't remember everything that was relevant at the time I made the original post. Now I've remember something that I meant to include. Changes are shown in this color brown.

Boundary violations

2007-10-03T11:48:00.000-04:00

Last night I attended the meeting of a step-study group I rarely attend, even though it is within walking distance of my house (they meet at my church and that sometimes makes me uncomfortable). Two women shared similar things that made me shudder. One said she checks her 17-year-old daughter's cell phone at night after her daughter falls asleep. Presumably to see whom she's been talking with. The other admitted that she goes through her 17-year-old daughter's pocketbook every night. I was immediately 17 years old again myself and imagining my reaction if I learned my mother was going through my stuff. Not a pretty picture.

I remember once I "borrowed" a CD from one of my daughters without asking. She had a conniption when she found out. And justifiably so, I thought. And still think. My bad, totally my bad!

The latter woman is a friend of mine and I spoke to her about it afterwards. Fortunately, the first thing I did was ask if her daughter knew she does this. Fortunately, because the answer was, "Yes," and that makes it much less unacceptable—in my eyes anyway. It still seems to me like a violation of her daughter's boundaries, but somehow the fact that her daughter knows she's doing makes it seem much less invasive.

I guess I'm particularly sensitive to things because I think that's a big part of what's going sour in my relationship with Nimue: continual boundary violations. Sigh!

Online anonymity

2007-10-02T10:24:00.000-04:00

The initial post

I was inspired to write about this topic by a post at AllMyAffairs titled Online anonymity. The author quotes Bill Moyers:

Bill Moyers wrote a book called Broken¹, where his 12 step membership is publicized. He states
"Not talking about my program of recovery would be like a marathon runner not talking about training. Although I'm breaking my anonymity, I protect the anonymity and confidentiality of others in the program. This is everybody's story: the still-suffering alcoholic, recovering people and families, and, hopefully, those who don't have a clue about my disease. I wrote this book to help smash the stigma of addiction and carry the message."

The author then goes on to describe what the anonymity guidelines will be on the AllMyAffairs website—"first name, last initial.... pictures, images of anything and everything are encouraged"—and concludes "Though individual thoughts and reiterations of group thoughts are what drive recovery, the individual is far less important than the whole."

My response

Here's the comment I made on this post:

Just because he's Bill Moyers doesn't mean he's right. I'm a great admirer of his, yet if you real all the literature on the subject, the reasons for not doing what he did are clearly spelled out.
The 11th Tradition specifically mentions "press, radio and film" but Bill W., in his article "Why Alcoholics Anonymous is Anonymous" adds TV (printed in Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, p. 286—I trust you've read it lately). Also the Anonymity statement used by GSO at their events—world conventions, Forums, etc.—and printed on p. 13 in the pamphlet Speaking at non-A.A. meetings adds a reference to new media: "Thus we respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker—or, indeed, any A.A. member—be identified by full name in published or broadcast reports of our meetings, including reports on new media technologies such as the Internet."
Of course, just because they're Bill W. and GSO doesn't make them right either. But these Conference-approved items are under constant review by alcoholics all over the world and if there were a serious issue, you can be sure it would come to the General Service Conference.

I just don't get Mr Moyers's analogy to the marathon runner. My daughter Painter and my son-in-law Revson are both occasional marathon runners. I sometimes get to hear a little about their training and maybe even a little about some of their friends' training. But when Robert K. Cheruiyot of Kenya won the 111^th Boston Marathon, did we hear anyone report on or talk about his training? No. Trying Googling for news stories that refer to both Robert K. Cheruiyot and training. If you do and look at the stories, it's actually quite remarkable how little is said about training. And as of this date, nothing at all about his training, let alone anything substantive.

Mr Moyers says he wants to "smash the stigma of addiction and carry the message." I agree there are times when it's appropriate to break my anonymity. I just don't agree those times include in the press, on radio, film, television or the Internet. If no one knows that I'm in the program, how can they come to me for help, whether for themselves or for someone they care about? I'm unusual, at least around here, for using my full name at every A.A. event that is not being recorded or broadcast—from my home group to the 2005 International Convention in Toronto. I do it so people who need to can figure out how to get in touch with me. But they're already in the rooms and can make their own reasoned judgments based on everything they see, not just on what happens to me. My family and my close friends know I'm in A.A., as do some of my not too close friends. In each case where I consider breaking my anonymity I try to honestly examine my motives: am I about to do so for reasons of ego? or for reasons of trying to practice the 12^th step?

The author of the AllMyAffairs post points out that "the individual is far less important than the whole." That's true; there's a whole Tradition devoted to the idea. I think it's very important though to look at all the Traditions, see which are applicable to a given situation and then make a decision. In this particular case, there's another whole Tradition that directly addresses the issue and, it seems clear to me, comes down on the side of maintaining our online anonymity.

Maintaining my anonymity is important to me because it helps keep me right-sized. Believe me, there's little that's more appealing to me than the idea of becoming a world-famous recovered alcoholic. It's important to A.A. because if I were that reknowned and for some reason did pick up a drink, those who knew about my recovery and membership in A.A. would say, "See? It doesn't work."

Ultimately Mr Moyers and AllMyAffairs make their own decisions about anonymity. That's as it should be. I have no designs on how anyone practices their program. It's one of the beautiful things about A.A.: I can express my opinions, but no one has to care that I'm giving them or listen to them, let alone agree with them or be in accord with them. We will continue to debate anonymity in all its forms as long as A.A. exists. And that's healthy.

¹ Read more about this book—including the fact that the decision to break his anonymity is a very recent one for Mr Moyers—or follow the link to buy it here.

Meat and potatoes

2007-09-30T20:53:00.000-04:00

It's been a good week for meetings. My home group met on Monday night. Being the last Monday of the month it was our speaker meeting, where the speaker gets the whole hour. We heard from someone who regularly attends our first meeting of each month (because it's a a Tradition meeting) but never any other.

On Tuesday night, I attended a meeting I rarely go to and heard Luigi, who had a great, great message. On the surface he and I have little in common, other than being alcoholics. He grew up on the city streets; I was a country boy. He was a heroin addict; I never got into any drugs. He never thought about getting a job till after he was sober; I never considered not having one. But he seemingly spoke directly to me, about how we can focus on the differences and find plenty of them, or focus on the similarities and find plenty of those too. With several years sober he had the thought that a lot of us have had: that we can go out for one night, have a few drinks then just come back to A.A. and easily get sober again. Luigi acted on that thought and couldn't get back for quite a while. I'm quite sure I'd get similar results.

On Wednesday night, my sponsor, The Rock, spoke at an anniversary meeting. He was outstanding. I've heard him several times and this was the best so far, full of humility, gratitude and emotion.

Early Thursday night, I went on my semi-regular walk and was debating whether to go to a meeting. I decided against it just before I got home. I walked in the house at 7:45 pm and got a load of criticism dumped on me, turned around and walked out to my car to drive to an 8:00 pm meeting. I was a few minutes late to the meeting—something I hate to be—but it did for me what I needed it to do and came out feeling a little less restless, a little less irritable and a little less discontent.

Last night I took Nimue to our Intergroup's annual dinner-dance, attended by almost 500 people. I asked her, thinking she wouldn't want to go, but for some reason decided she wanted to. I wound up half wishing I hadn't asked her, not because of anything that happened, but just because I'm more comfortable these days when I'm not around her. I saw a lot of friends and heard a DCM with whom I served on Panel 51 (2001-2002). I had heard him before too, and he was as good as ever on Saturday night.

This afternoon I spoke at a meeting 40 minutes away that I've never attended. I felt pretty good about how it turned out and had a nice drive home through some gorgeous countryside on a wonderful fall day (unlike the drive up which was up a main artery with far too much traffic and wall-to-wall commercial establishments lining most of the distance). I hit on two points I always try to remember to make: the importance of the steps and of carrying the message.

A guy who shared after I spoke commented that, for him, the steps are the meat and potatoes of the program. I like good analogies and the more I thought about this one, the more I liked it. Meat and potatoes don't just magically appear on the table for us to eat. There's a cook or two in the kitchen who had to prepare them. Someone had to go to the store and buy the raw ingredients. Some people at the grocery store had to make sure these ingredients were available on the shelves. Some others had to transport the raw goods from wherever they were produced to the retail outlet. Still others raised the beef and grew the potatoes and harvested them both. And these are just the most obvious things that had to happen. There are many, many services that go on behind the scenes in order to make the meal available, all of them essential.

Then tonight I attended another anniversary, that of my first home group, where I first got involved in general service. I was their GSR for about 15 months in 1993-1994. I heard the same person speak that spoke at the same church for another group's anniversary eight days ago. He's a guy I saw regularly in early sobriety but rarely see anymore. He was a big help to me in those early days and I got thank him publicly for it.

I'm so fortunate to have so many meetings to choose from, to have so many recovering alcoholics for friends. It wasn't alway so and still isn't so many places today, both in the U.S. and around the world. And it wasn't ever so, anywhere for ages and ages, up until a few decades ago. So if I'm still feeling restless, irritable and discontent, it could be worse. Much much worse.

Comment approval

2007-09-29T15:03:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry to report that due to continual posting of unwanted comments by one individual, despite my direct request to him to stop, I've decided to turn on the option to approve all comments before they are posted. I'm really sorry to impose this inconvenience to everyone else, but there's no other option available that seems reasonable to me. More than for any other reason, I hate doing it because it feel like I am handing some kind of victory to a sick person who doesn't know how to be kind or even considerate.

You can see what kind of person this so-called Christian is by reading the comment he left me here after I politely asked him to stop doing so.

First-aid for burns

2007-09-28T13:33:00.000-04:00

(Warning: clicking on the picture to the left will lead to a blog containg images that some viewer may find disturbing, espcially overeaters.)

Something I told my daughter almost twenty years ago, when she was 14 or 15, saved my 1½ year-old grandson from getting a very serious burn on his hand the other day. He put his hand, palm down, on a hot ceramic stovetop. His mother, S-Cat, remembered me saying when I was on the local volunteer ambulance squad that running cold water over a burn right away can reduce what would be a third-degree burn to a second, or a second-degree burn to a first. So she immediately picked him up, turned around and ran cold water over his hand. Fortunately she had been standing right there. At the burn center, they said she probably had prevented him getting a third-degree burn and that he might get away without even getting any blisters.

Care-takers of children, please take note! Of course this works equally well for the older ones of us who are occasionally unfortunate enough to get burned as well. Personally I like using ice even better, because it kills the pain. Just gotta be sure you don't freeze the tissue, which is a real danger, because as soon as you remove the ice, the searing pain returns almost immediately.

Listening to my own advice

2007-09-28T10:05:00.000-04:00

Things are not as good this last week. I've been short-tempered, sullen, tired and unmotivated. Sunday was stressful: I chaired a meeting that an ad hoc committee I was not a part of had planned. I kept getting hit with surprises, which I like even less than usual when I'm chairing. I had my own 5-minute spiel to give and I felt inarticulate while giving it.

But all that was okay. When I got home, I had a bummer of an interaction with Nimue that seemed to have started me into my... well, "tailspin" is too strong a word, maybe "unplanned descent" is more accurate. We had several such spates throughout the week, mostly recently last night.

All week long I've been wondering to what extent, if any, this is due to my on-going unplanned withdrawal from Prozac. When I last posted about this, I once again had some slight hope that I had gotten through to my mail-order pharmacy, Caremark. A couple of days after that post, I got a call saying my order had finally shipped. But then a week later, I got another call saying they couldn't ship because they needed more information from my doctor. I let this person really have it and wound up hanging up on her because she wouldn't listen to what I was saying and insisted on talking over me when I was trying to speak. The next day I got the non-Prozac portions of my order filled at a local pharmacy, which of course cost me more than getting them mail-order would have. But at least I got them. I figured I had proven by then I didn't really need the Prozac and even was better off without it (mostly due to sleeping so much better). Or so I thought.

Then in reflecting this morning, I had the thought that for the preceding few weeks, back to the beginning of August, I had finally started to have "the courage to change [some of] the things I can," addressing some ongoing issues in our household that have left me feeling out of control of my life for years. Not that I ever expect my life to be manageable. But I do feel like we ought to be able to keep strangers—to me anyway—from walking into our house unbidden when no one's home, to not have leftover foods lying around the living room for days at a time, to not have dirty dishes pile up for over a week on the kitchen counters, to not have piles of cigarette butts and other smoking trash littering the entrance to our house, etc. I had begun to address some of these issues on my own, without Nimue's help or cooperation, even with her active opposition at times, despite the fact that her children are responsible for these things.

But this last week, I have once again started feeling that the price I pay for such efforts in terms of my relationship with Nimue is too high. I've got a real bad case of the "f--- its." The Rock, my sponsor, is very sympathetic to this view of things. He thinks I tolerate far too much abuse and keeps telling me not to be such a doormat. But then I know that he's got issues that cloud his judgment when it comes to relationships with women.

When my therapist first recommended going onto an anti-depressant, I was skeptical. I told him I thought my depression was situational rather than clinical. He responded that if the anti-depressant improved my mood, by definition it was a clinical depression. Up till now I've pretty much bought that. But all along I've wondered about it. Defining something a certain way doesn't make it really so. Who's to say that a depression can't be caused by the situation and still be helped by chemicals?

Or am I just playing my lifelong head game of finding the reasons to justify whatever point of view I prefer? I don't know. My inclination is just to muscle my way through the situation and "force" myself to feel better.

Funny, that's what I keep hearing from Mr Riches-to-Rags. And I keep telling him that's not how it works. Maybe I should be listening to my own advice.

Random Questions

2007-09-21T16:08:00.000-04:00

I'm taking up Doc's Girl on her offer to link to anyone who answers these questions.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?

Yes, my first name: all the oldest males on my maternal grandfather's side of the family for at least five generations had it. Some had it as a first name, others as a middle name. My mother's older brother had it as a first name, but he died at three days old. Then her younger brother got it as a middle name; he died in Texas in a jeep accident during World War II. I didn't realize this until well after I had named my own son, so I broke the tradition. Still, the second syllable of his first name is pronounced the same as my first name.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?

At my daughter's wedding in May.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?

It's not real honest-to-goodness handwriting; it's a kind of printing. Yes, I do like it. During grammar school, handwriting was the only subject I got bad grades in.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?

Thinly sliced steak, no question.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

Five. Not including step-children (four) of children-in-law (two so far).

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?

Most of the time, but certainly not always. Sometimes I get really tired of myself.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?

Yes, all the time.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?

Yes, I still have everything but 8 teeth—rather unbelievably, I have a really small mouth, LOL—and a little bit of skin from the 4^th toe on my left foot that was replaced with skin from my thigh.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?

Yes, especially if no one else dared to.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?

Granola—currently Bear Naked brand.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?

Depends on the shoes: my sneakers, no; my dress shoes; yes; my sandals (which is what I wear whenever possible except when it's raining or snowing), obviously not.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?

Not particularly, though other people say I am.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?

Black raspberry chip (preferably with dark chocolate chips).

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?

Their sense of comfort with themselves.

15. RED OR PINK?

Orange.

16. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?

That I'm sober today.

On a materialistic note, I like that I'm exactly the height that everyone manufactures things for. I used to be exactly the size that everyone makes things for, and I could count on fitting into almost anything bought off the rack, but I've since put on some weight.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?

My maternal grandmother.

18. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?

Black jeans, brown tie-up shoes.

19. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?

Three cupfuls of low-sodium V-8 with healthy doses of Tabasco sauce.

20. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?

Nothing. I wish I were listening to my favorite local jazz station, but it would probably be bothering those sitting within earshot of me.

21. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?

Raw sienna (BTW, here is a great place to do research).

22. FAVORITE SMELLS?

Coffee—I drink a lot of it but the smell has always been better than the taste—the air after a sudden spring rain, leaves starting to decay in fall, the ocean, marijuana (even though I never did more than experiment with it a couple of times) and sex.

23. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?

A guy I was trying to talk into doing a presentation at an A.A. service event this coming Sunday. The person scheduled to do it went into the hospital with chest pains, had her heart catheterized, was told to stay at home and rest for a while, and still was planning to come do the presentation herself. I told her she couldn't. He demurred and I've since left messages for the other four people who are qualified to give it. I don't have high hopes of anyone agreeing to fill in.

Before that it was someone from Caremark, telling me that I needed my doctor's office to fax them some information before they could fill my prescriptions. This despite the call last week saying my meds had been shipped. Grrrrrr!

24. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?

Curling, football (preferably Australian rules or Canadian, but not college—go figure) and ice hockey (NHL).

25. HAIR COLOR?

Brown, with more and more of it turning white, especially in my beard.

26. EYE COLOR?

Brown.

27. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?

Yes, except at night.

28. FAVORITE FOOD?

Seafood, especially shellfish, especially lobster; dark chocolate; anything with caramel.

29. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?

Most happy endings are too pat. Most scary movies are dumb. Despite the risk of appearing a traitor to my sex, I don't care at all for action movies either. I'm definitely into chick flicks, especially those that are confusing, odd or unusual in some way (Mulholland Drive, for example).

30. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?

We Were Soldiers, which is a little embarrassing to admit.

31. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?

Light blue—the color of faded jeans.

32. SUMMER OR WINTER?

Spring and autumn.

33. HUGS OR KISSES?

I couldn't imagine living without both, yet here I am, stuck with just hugs for a couple of years now. Sometimes I wish I didn't have such scruples.

34. FAVORITE DESSERT?

Dark chocolate, caramel.

35. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?

Wittgenstein's Nephew, by Thomas Bernhard.

36. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?

The help-desk logo of one of my clients, with their phone number and e-mail address.

37. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT?

Charlie Rose (he was interviewing Alan Greenspan).

38. FAVORITE SOUNDS?

A well-played clarinet doing a jazz classic, like Stardust.

39. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?

Beatles, most definitely. The only thing that's changed since 1963 is that now I like John better than Paul.

40. WHAT IS THE FURTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?

Adelaide, South Australia (not including in my imagination).

41. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?

Yes, for carrying the message of recovery to other alcoholics. It's the primary purpose in my life.

42. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

In a hospital about 6½ km down the road from where I now live, even though I grew up about 100 km away, in the next state.

The Gift of Freedom

2007-09-21T12:24:00.000-04:00

Today's Daily Reflection:

The Last Promise

We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 84
The last Promise in the Big Book came true for me on the very first day of sobriety. God kept me sober that day, and on every other day I allowed Him to operate in my life. He gives me the strength, courage and guidance to meet my responsibilities in life so that I am then able to reach out and help others stay sober and grow. He manifests within me, making me a channel of His word, thought and deed. He works with my inner self, while I produce in the outer world, for He will not do for me what I can do for myself. I must be willing to do His work, so that He can function through me successfully.

This is closely aligned with my conception of God. The Higher Power manifests within me. If I am living right and cooperating with his/her design for living, then I become a channel. This is the means—the only means—God has of communciating with us directly: through other human beings. God lives, if you will, on the spiritual plane of existence, and while we live in this world, our consciousness remains on a material, physical plane and we are only vaguely aware of the spiritual one. Thus God's communication with those around us depends upon our freely chosen willingness to do his/her will.

As God said in response to Ernie Chambers's lawsuit against him/her: "I created man and woman with free will and next to the promise of immortal life, free will is my greatest gift to you." May I use this gift wisely!

Recovery police?

2007-09-20T13:42:00.000-04:00

My friend Jew in Recovery posted the other day that he came home from an NA meeting and started feeling like he was getting high. He wondered about the coffee. I quoted from his post and commented (without the links):

"I plan on emailing anonymously the county NA to register a suspicion. This is another diff. with NA, there are very likely users and dealers masquerading around there for the purpose of meeting new clients and fellow users. You know, find the guy or gal who will relapse, and now you have a new customer.

I know that this does happen there. because one of their rules is that they state, no illegal activities are allowed or action will be taken."

Wow, as a so-called "pure alcoholic" I had no idea. Is the presence of dealers at meetings a common occurrence? Are there NA "cops" who police this kind of thing? Is that who "county NA" are? What will county NA do after receiving your e-mail? What action is taken when illegal activities occur?

I shudder to think what it would be like to be attending meetings under such conditions. Yet another thing to be grateful for.

Another reminder of why I don't drink

2007-09-20T12:32:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine shared his story last night. I've heard him several times before but, as usual, there were some things I'd never heard before, including this particularly horrific one.

One night while he was still drinking, he had his young son with him while playing poker at a friends house. He passed out and, during the night, one of the other men took his son upstairs and molested him. This is something my friend has had to live with for many years and that will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Yet another example of the possible consequences of picking up a drink that constitute a fate worse than death, jail or institutions (the three most commonly cited in these parts).

Let me say something good

2007-09-19T09:52:00.001-04:00

Something about this song really appeals to the alcoholic in me:

You finally said something good when you said goodbye
So don't wait around to see if I'm a gonna cry
Instead of tears streaming down my face you'll find a great big smile in their place
You finally said something good when you said goodbye

I don't wanna rush things honey but I'll help you pack
I've been waitin' on you to make a move like that
Don't waste anytime on words my dear you already said what I wanna hear
Yeah you finally said something good when you said goodbye

Better make your move faster honey I'll call a cab
Now don't worry about the money I'll pay the tab
Now you've been talking for nearly a year and at last you said what I wanted to hear
Yeah you finally said something good when you said goodbye

Oh you finally said something good...
Oh you finally said something good when you said goodbye
— Charlie Louvin
(recently performed by Teddy Thompson on his album Up Front & Low Down)

I guess I wish I'd always been in the position to be able to say something like this. More accurately, I wish I'd ever been in the position to be able to say something like this.

Insomnia

2007-09-15T03:43:00.000-04:00

So much for being back to more normal sleep schedules. I went to bed at 11:30, watched a bit of a PBS documentary and fell asleep around midnight. I woke up at 2:10 and couldn't get back to sleep. After half an hour of trying to, I got up. Now here I am an hour later. I do think I'll need a at least a nap later. But for now, I might as well get something done.

The circus is still in town

2007-09-14T20:29:00.000-04:00

I just noticed that I didn't title my last post. I usually write the title last, since I often either don't know exactly what I'm going to blog about or I change direction after I start typing.

After consulting with a number of Past Delegates and much to my relief, AdenineLush, our Area delegate, canceled last night's meeting. She decided to do so Wednesday night. I didn't find out till yesterday afternoon. I am in the habit of turning off my mobile phone during A.A. meetings, but sometimes I don't remember right away to turn it back on afterwards. After Wednesday night's meeting, it took about 18 hours to remember. There were a large number of voice messages, mostly from AdenineLush, who initially had asked me to contact the other officers. As she began to realize that I wasn't getting these messages, she started making the calls herself. So now we'll reschedule this potentially dramatic meeting till sometime when we have more time available and with somebody else—someone more objective than I can be—facilitating it. Those were my two main concerns.

At the Wednesday meeting, I heard someone quote something new that made me chuckle. It certainly applied to my early sobriety and I know it's equally true for a number of my A.A. friends: "I got the monkey off my back, but the circus is still in town." For most of us, I suspect it's a three-ring circus too and that the animals are a littler wilder than most of our handlers would like.

I set aside this morning to work on my quarterly tax return, due Monday. In actual fact, it took all day, and I still have to double-check my work tomorrow or Sunday. I haven't had to pay estimated tax in about four years so the spreadsheets I use to calculate what I owe were quite out of date.

I'm still sleeping well, and still back to my normal number of hours. I got a call from Caremark; my two prescriptions shipped today. I'm still not going to hold my breath, but I might actually get them before the end of the month.

We've had a few gorgeous sunny days, with temperatures a little higher in the afternoon than I'd like, but nice cool nights. It's been cloudier today and will likely rain tonight and tomorrow, thanks to Humberto. After that it should be sunny again. Highs will be just above 20°C with lows around 10°. Fabulous!

I'm way behind in my blog reading. Hopefully I'll do some catching up over the weekend. I miss knowing what's going on with my online friends.

A bit of downer

2007-09-13T10:26:00.001-04:00

My euphoric mood is definitely at an end. For one thing, I came back from my weekend away to a bit of nastiness with Nimue. As a result though, one thing became crystal clear: there's one [admittedly very small] piece of our [supposedly] shared life together over which she has complete control and about which I get to give no input. Zero. Nada. Zip. Zilch. That was a definite mood-dampener.

There's also been a special meeting planned for tonight for some Area business. It wasn't a big deal until Sunday, when some things happened that have given me considerable anxiety about tonight's meeting. This hasn't helped my mood either.

My sleep time has become more normal too. Sunday night I slept for a really long time—10 or 11 hours. I woke up several times during the morning and could have gotten up, but didn't. I have to admit I was feeling a little depressed. I found myself wondering if I should go back on my anti-depressant medication when it arrives. On Monday night I only slept for 5 ½ hours, but then I napped for 3 more in the afternoon and went to bed at a normal time. Or was that Tuesday? Last night I slept for 7 ½ hours.

I'm still thinking I'll stay off the medication, at least for a while. That is, if it ever comes in. I just checked on the status of the order they promised for the second time to place three days ago. They still haven't gotten the prescriptions, they still haven't shipped them and they still haven't let me know what's going on! This time, the final rep—this time I wrote down all their names—promised to call me one way or the other.

By the way, the name of the mail-order pharmacy is Caremark. Avoid them if at all possible!

In which Trinker loses it...

2007-09-10T21:59:00.000-04:00

In my post Rx for Overhaul 3½ weeks ago, I begrudgingly conceded that the mail order pharmacy had taken steps to make things right. I shouldn't have.

I still haven't received my prescriptions. I called the pharmacy today and the representative I spoke to said once again that I was listed as being "too old" to have my prescriptions filled. That pushed me over my limit. I asked to speak to his supervisor. He agreed to transfer me and for the next five minutes all I got on the line was dead silence.

Eventually I realized my call was going nowhere, hung up and called back. I managed to put myself through to a service representative immediately, even though the menu choices they offered didn't include that as one of the options. With what I am sure was obvious anger in my voice I explained what was going on. The rep said he was able to get through the process of ordering my medications, but insisted I needed to send them the prescriptions my doctor had written, which they had returned to me at the end of July when this screw-up started. At this point I lost it and started yelling, screaming and swearing. I told him he had to make it right and eventually he connected me to someone who agreed—again—to call my doctor directly, get the prescription information and have them filled and sent to me.

So now I'm right back where I was on August 16th, only I've gone an additional 3½ weeks without medication and I'm much angrier with this particular provider.

I suffered the rest of today with an emotional hangover from having treated the poor service representative so badly. It wasn't his fault. I wished I had written down his name so I could call back and make amends to him (though I don't feel I have any to make to the company itself).

So what do you suppose we read tonight at my home group? It was pp. 82-83 in the Big Book, the part of Step 9 that precedes the promises. How appropriate is that? It included these couple of sentences:

There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would right them if we could.

Bingo! That's right where I am. I've got to let it go and hopefully, my medications will arrive in the 7-10 days I was again promised.

A busy Friday

2007-09-07T21:58:00.000-04:00

I've been regretting my use of the term mania for what I've been experiencing for the last 20 days or so. I don't want to make light of people who suffer—or in a dysfunctional way actually enjoy—their episodes of mania. I think euphoria would have been a better term. It's not as strong as it had been, and the last couple of nights I've gotten 6-7 hours sleep. I'm feeling more normal, but still very, very good.

Today I met with some folks I may be able to partner with in business. I'm a self-employed computer consultant. They have, at least as far as I know, a unique business model that I believe I could fit very well into. It would mean more time doing the things I enjoy most and less time doing the things I enjoy least, without giving up any of my independence or freedom to act on my own. I met with three of the four partners and their administrative assistant: the person they described as "the one who really gets things done around here."

The meeting went very well. We laid our cards out on the table and I think I hit it off with all of them. An additional plus was the way they raved about the person through whom my introduction came—I was my boss a couple of years ago—saying, "He's a fantastic guy, even if he is a Republican. By the way, you're not a Republican, are you? You don't look like one."¹ The 90-minute experience left me euphoric again.

I devoted most of the rest of the day to preparing for an Area service event this weekend. I'll drive the almost 300 km midday tomorrow, attend a District workshop from 4:00 to 8:00 and then chair the quarterly Area Committee meeting, which will be an all-day event. Fortunately, I'm driving both ways with the Delegate and that's always a great pleasure.

If I get time, I might post from the hotel tomorrow night.

¹ For the record, I don't.

More on the Rule of Three

2007-09-06T08:47:00.000-04:00

For anyone who might be interested, I updated yesterday's post on my Rule of Three. One comment reminded me of something I mistakenly omitted and another pointed out an important exception.

Also, in catching up on my blog reading, I caught Dr A. quoting something very relevant to this rule in his 30 Aug post:

Sober speech is mindful speech—embodying both truth and usefulness and expressed in a way and at a time that it can be heard. This last point necessarily involves whether to speak, as well as when and how. In many instances, wise speech/sober speech requires no speech at all. When our words would be untrue or frivolous or harmful, we are better not to speak.
Laura S., 12 Steps on Buddha's Path

This caught my attention immediately. As I read the first sentence I thought, "Hmm, this reminds me of something I posted about. I think I would have added one more attribute, making it read 'embodying truth, usefulness and kindness." Then reading the last sentence I thought, "Ah, the idea of not being harmful is quite close to the idea of being kind."

As I think I've said before, his blog is highly relevant to those of us trying to "practice these principles" in our relationships, especially the primary ones. All those who are not trying to do are excused from taking a peek at his blog.

My Rule of Three

2007-09-05T11:43:00.001-04:00

This is a rule I've been using for a long time, almost 20 years, back to the ending stages of my first marriage (maybe if I'd started using it earlier I'd still be in my first marriage). It's not Wiccan and it's certainly not sexual, but it seems vaguely authorish; it applies to interpersonal relationships. I was told when I first learned it that it originated with Native Americans. This seems to me likely to be apocryphal, but I've found it a wise and useful rule nonetheless.

It used to be that whenever I wanted someone to do something, I'd find myself doing one of two things¹: asking once and, if I didn't see evidence of compliance, letting it go, or asking over and over till I got what I wanted. My personal style tends toward the former. I'm particularly annoyed by people who exhibit the latter style—commonly called nagging
—in their interactions with me.

You can probably figure out already what the Rule of Three says: that one should ask three times and no more. My experience is that after three times the person doesn't want to or can't hear what I'm asking, is unwilling to comply, or has some other issue that makes it useless to continue asking. Actually, continuing is almost always worse than useless. It starts becoming easier for me to get a resentment and the person of whom I'm making the request is likely to start perceiving me as being nagging.

So what do I do after three requests? If I'm to "practice these principles in all my affairs" I see only two choices²: (1) abandon hope of my request being fulfilled, without resentment or (2) find another way to solve my problem, meet my need or fulfill my desire.

Updated by Namenlosen Trinker on 6 Sep at 7:54

Pam's comment reminded me of one very important point I omitted in my original post: the three requests must be made on three separate but not too widely spaced occasions. Asking three times in less than a minute is outside the spirit of this rule. So is never being able to bring it up again. And it's for dealing with adults, not children (Thanks, Shadow!).

¹ My 2nd sponsor, Ralph, was forever telling me that tended to see things in black and white. With me everything always had to be yes or no, good or bad, true or false. His advice to me was to pause long enough to think of at least one more alternative so I'd have at least three to choose among.

² See what I mean? LOL!

Storm clouds

2007-09-04T13:52:00.000-04:00

I just learned that Cumulonimbus and Nonces Juicy have separated and moved into different houses. This is heartbreaking news. I've know her from early childhood (she's my first cousin) and him for nearly four decades. When we were both starting families, they actually lived with us for a few months. Consequently, my two oldest daughters are still good friends with their two.

He was my #1 drinking buddy from those early family days till I got sober. One 4th of July about 11 or 12 years ago, he asked me take him to an A.A. meeting. I did, and he lasted for about four years, as I recall. I love this man. I only very rarely see him. From what I hear he's getting progressively worse—no surpise there—and the consequences are getting greater. Now here's another one.

While he was on board, we regularly attended a Sunday meeting together in my sponsor's living room. A few years after he went out, I bumped into him. I took the opportunity to remind him that I'm there to help whenever he's ready. He practically made the sign of the cross to keep me away from him and took off as quickly as he could. Apparently, that attitude hasn't changed.

I'll be praying for both of them, and their children. If anyone else is willing to join me, I'd greatly appreciate it.

New mood theory

2007-09-04T10:29:00.000-04:00

Yesterday and today, emotionally, I've been my normal excellent self, not my manic excellent self. Still, I seem to require less sleep than I had been needing until two weeks ago. Monday night I slept for 3½ hours. Then at my home group meeting, during our Tradition XI (subscription to A.A. Grapevine Digital Archive required) reading, suddenly I felt soooo tired. I let my eyes close and missed a big chunk of the reading. I didn't miss any of the sharing, but sitting there I felt like I could do no more afterwards than to drive the 8 km home and get to bed. And then when I got home, I stayed up another 1½ hours!

I went to bed just before 11:00 PM and read from the book I'm currently in the middle of—Wittgenstein's Nephew—for a half hour before falling asleep. I woke around 3:20 and felt rested enough to seriously consider getting up. But I didn't. I was afraid if I did that feeling of exhaustion might hit me again during the day. I fell asleep again quickly and got up just before 7:00. That's more sleep than I've had in over two weeks, but still less than my previous norm.

I have a new theory about why I've been in this mood. Perhaps its due to my excitement about converting from Windows to Linux. Though I've been intending to for years, and genuinely motivated by the fear of having to use Vista, I only got serious about it two weeks ago. Over last weekend, I made the major step of converting my primary e-mail client, including my e-mail address book, from Thunderbird on Windows to Evolution on Linux. It was a much easier process than I expected. Now I'm trying to get all my PIM data—calendar, scheduling, tasks and full address books—from Time & Chaos to Evolution. It's proving to be much harder, perhaps in part because I haven't upgrade T&C for a long time: ever since it acquired all the features I really wanted. These are the kinds of challenges I love though and, sure enough, it sometimes keeps me awake as thoughts about how to deal with them flood through my brain.

This is only a theory; it goes along with the others I have, the primary of which is being off Prozac, which I still am.

Odds and ends

2007-09-02T15:58:00.000-04:00

(1) Is my streak of feeling truly excellent, being full of energy and not needing much sleep coming to an end? I slept for about 6½ hours last night and could easily have stayed in bed. Furthermore I just feel my normal excellent self. Stay tuned (as if you cared, LOL!).

(2) I deleted comments from this blog for the first time today. At first I thought this person had left only one comment. I didn't like the comment, but e-mailed him a response thusly:

Thanks, Micky; I welcome your comments even though I don't agree with them. The tone of your post is just slightly alarming to me. Feel free to comment all you'd like but, please, no vitriol or harangues. I've taken the liberty of adding your blog to my blogroll since you seem to be interested in the subject of recovery from alcoholism.

Yours in sobriety,
Trinker

Adding his site to my blogroll prompted me to add the caveat you now see at the beginning of that list. You can tell I was nervous, can't you? I used to have a problem with SPAM on my other blog;

When my message to him bounced, I realized that he had made four different comments like this to the same post (I hadn't noticed before due to the weird way Gmail displays messages). My fears were justified, it appears. I deleted all four posts and removed his site from my blogroll. I really don't want to have to start moderating comments so I'm going to assume for now that his was aberrant and unusual behavior.

(3) I've added something here I've been thinking about for a long time: a page documenting my story and another documenting the God of my understanding. I had a few miscellaneous things on my old blog, but not these. I created a page with links to each of these (and the date and time of most recent update); I'll add additional links if and when I add additional such content. I hope someone finds these of interest.

A thousand's not enough

2007-09-01T17:16:00.000-04:00

An alcoholic was walking along a beach. A sunlit glint of metal in the sand caught his eye. Going over to inspect it, he saw that it was brass. He started brushing away the sand from around it and soon realized it was an old brass lantern or lamp. After he'd cleared away enough sand, he was able to free it from its sandy grave. He lifted it up.

"Wow," he thought, "I wonder if this is worth anything?" and started brushing away the wet sand that still clung to it.

As he did so, a mist started drifting out of the spout. It very quickly became very thick and large, about his own size. Then, with a quiet whoosh, the cloud coalesced into a genie!

"Thank you, my friend!" said the genie with a kind smile. "You have just freed me from thousands of years of being washed around on the ocean floor by the tides and currents. And of course, as I'm sure you know, you now get three wishes. What will you have?"

It didn't this boozer long at all to know what he wanted.

"How about a bottle of scotch that never does dry?"

Poof! A bottle of scotch appeared in his hand. Somewhat wary, he carefully opens the bottle and sniffs the contents.

"Smells like scotch," he remarked.

"It's good scotch too," answered the genie.

The alcoholic takes a small sip.

"Mmmm," he says, "that is good scotch!"

I lifts the bottle to his lips and takes a healthy swig.

Lowering the bottle, he asks, "And it will never go dry?"

"Never!" replies the genie.

A big smile breaks across the drunk's face and he says, with enthusiasm, "Hot damn!"

He takes another swig, enjoys it briefly, then takes another.

The genie, getting impatient, says, "You still have two more wishes, you know."

"Oh yeah," says the drunk and thinks for a few seconds.

Then holding up the bottle, he says, "I'll take two more of these!"

Big Book Step Study, p. 30

2007-09-01T16:29:00.000-04:00

This morning we read p. 30 in my Big Book Step Study meeting and it put me right back in the frame of mind I was in last night. It will take a little set-up to explain.

Nimue is Australian. A couple of Australian friends of hers are in town and they invited the two of us out for drinks last night. Cliff (I'll call him) has been here for a year and is attending college locally. I'm not sure why Matthew (also a made-up name) is here; he's probably visiting. This weekend is Cliff's last chance to relax and take it easy before school starts again. After that it will be "nose to the grindstone," full-time. Nimue was the one they talked to and she warned them that it might not be my cup of tea. She was right.

However, I did spend a few minutes with them before they left. I explained to Matthew that I couldn't safely drink, that I'd already had more than my share (Cliff already knew I was in A.A.). He understood immediately what I was talking about. Until about 10 years ago, he drank the way I used to. Then he decided, for whatever reason, to cut it out. He still drinks, but has no trouble controlling the quantity. At least so he says, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. Cliff is clearly not an alcoholic (something I already suspected); he had no idea at all what Matthew and I were talking about.

This is what put me in the frame of mind recalled by the chapter "More on Alcoholism."

... [O]ur drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

We... had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics.... The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

... We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals—usually brief—were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.

Not that I was thinking these things. It's just that I was in the same frame of mind during my discussion with Cliff and Matthew last night that I was when reading these words this morning. Somehow—miracle of miracles—the ideas in the Big Book have become an ingrained part of my reaction to thoughts about alcohol and drinking. Thank you, HP!

To finish about last night. While waiting for Nimue—what on earth did women ever do before bathrooms and mirrors were invented?—they asked me where they should go. I thought first of the Vertebrae Shanty, a place frequently by low-life (like me) and supposedly a great place to get drugs. I told them this and suggested they might want to go elsewhere. I thought next of Sharia Fettle, but they just tore that place down. Finally I thought of Banner Sky, which used to be a dive but has recently been all fixed up. Fixed up so well I've even thought of going there for dinner. That's where they wound up going, although I learned from Nimue today that it got to noisy, so they went to a nearby diner—no winer, beer or liquor of any kind—so they could have a real discussion. Obviously none of them are alcoholic.

The mood continues

2007-09-01T06:21:00.000-04:00

In my last post I alluded to something special I wanted to address in my next post. This is not it. I was just about finished what I wanted to post and somehow—by navigating to different web page I think—I managed to lose a slew of edits and additions. Sigh! A piece of that poste will include the substance of a postscript I added to my would-be audio post during my walk yesterday. Hopefully I'll finish that post today and get it up here.

This post addresses the remaining substance of my would-be audio post, to wit:

My excellent, energetic and strange mood continues. Four nights ago I slept for 3, 3½ hours. The following afternoon, I did nap, but only for an hour. Three nights ago, I got more like 5 hours sleep. But then two nights ago, I know I was asleep by 12:30 and I didn't wake up till 6:30. (Is that right? I had it in my mind that I got 7 hours sleep, but maybe it was only 6. I remember thinking after I woke up that I'd gotten in nearly 8 hours which, until I started this streak of short nights, used to be my minimum. I mean, I could get up if I had to, but I paid the price.)

As you can see by the time of this post, I'm up early again. Last night I fell asleep around 12:30. I was up around 5:30. Normally on a Saturday, if I'm not off on some service commitment, my alarm goes off at 8:00 to wake me up so I can get to my 9:00 meeting.

I have discerned one drawback to this streak I'm on: in the last two weeks compared to the two weeks prior, my morning blood pressure is up a little (I try to record it several times a day; I'm on medication for hypertension). The systolic (upper number) reading is up just over 6 mm Hg and the diastolic (lower number) just under 4. I thought it was up by more than that, which is the only reason I even did the calculations. And of course I'm pretty darn good at recording these numbers due to my obsessive-compulsiveness (actually meticulousness is a more accurate description).

My failed attempt at an audio post

2007-08-31T22:10:00.000-04:00

I went for a walk this afternoon. I've been trying to walk every day for at least 30 minutes. Today's walk was a little longer (about 4 km) because I wanted to run some errands on the way. I took my mini-tape recorder, which I often have with me, to dictate reminders to myself of things I want to do. About half a kilometer into my walk, it occurred to me that I could dictate a post for this blog. Then almost immediately I realized I could try to make it an audio post—something I've never tried before on any blog. So I recorded a brief one as an experiment.

Later on I tried getting the audio onto my computer. First I tried my Linux computer. I couldn't figure out how to get sound recording working and after a while gave up. Then I tried my Windows computer. With a little bit of effort, I succeeded, using only the Sound Record that ships with Windows. Unfortunately, it won't create files more than 1 minute long. So now I have 5 one-minute sound files ready to be uploaded. I'm not happy about having that many files, but hey, it's just an experiment.

However, in the process of getting the recording onto my computer, I realized how confusing and hard to understand it is what I'm saying. So I'm reluctant to proceed. Perhaps later tonight I'll post the substance of what I had to say in a written post. But first there's something else I want to address. Stay tuned!

Early signs of Autumn

2007-08-28T15:13:00.000-04:00

The leaves on a dogwood tree are starting to turn color and a few have even fallen to the ground already:
Close-up of leaves on another dogwood (again, note the couple of fallen leaves):
Berries forming an a third dogwood:Leaves on a Japanese maple (?) have turned bright red:
All these photos were taken at our house today in 32.2°C (89.9°F) weather. Clicking on the images will load much larger versions (2.0-3.4 MB).

If my whole life were condensed to fit in one year, on Saturday (at about 3:15 PM) I would be as old as I actually am right now¹. So in some artificial way² these pictures represent exactly where I am in my life right now (I know—I have too much time and not enough to do).

¹ Assuming I live to be 86 years old, which I have some whimsical reason to believe, and that I die smack dab in the middle of that year.
² It would probably be less artificial to use a year that starts and ends of the winter solstice, which case this milestone would have been about 10 days earlier.

Deep, dark secrets

2007-08-28T08:45:00.000-04:00

Today's entry from Daily Reflections:

Lightening the Burden

Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worth while to us now.... the dark past is... the key to life and happiness for others.
Alcoholics Anonymous, p.124

Since I have been sober, I have been healed of many pains: deceiving my partner, deserting my best friend, and spoiling my mother's hopes for my life. In each case someone in the program told me of a similar problem, and I was able to share what happened to me. When my story was told, both of us got up with lighter hearts.

This remains one of the great miracles of the program: that by working the steps the horror of my past has been diminished and has even become a useful tool for helping others. Like so many of us, I had deep, dark secrets that I carried for decades, intending to keep them hidden from view forever.

Of course, I knew about them. When I drank, I could momentarily forget them. At the same time, drunk, I was often adding to the list of horrors that I didn't want to face. And when I wasn't drunk, I also knew that God knew.

Today, the guilt and shame are not gone. But they've been greatly diminished, so much so that I've shared the scariest and most disturbing of this history with more than one person (though I try to do so only when it seem called for, not exhibitionistically¹): a sponsor, therapists, my wife² and others. I have to assume this has primarily been a result of working Steps 4, 5, 8 and 9.

It's nice to think that I won't be sharing my coffin with these horrors. ☺

¹ Is this really a word? Blogger didn't flag is as misspelled, though I can't find it on Bartleby.com.

² I'm certainly not recommending this. At times I reget it. At other times, when I reflect on it, I'm happy I did. Be careful, be very, very careful!

More sleep

2007-08-28T08:06:00.002-04:00

I resisted the temptation to take an afternoon nap yesterday. I assume that as a consequence I slept for almost 7 hours last night, still less than I usually need. And it was good sleep. I guess my body wants to average more than 4½ hours a night, LOL!. Nevertheless, I'm still feeling great!

Manic Monday

2007-08-27T18:38:00.000-04:00

My state of euphoria without anti-depressants continues. After going to bed at midnight and falling asleep a shortly after 1:30, I woke up at 5:30 this morning and got up shortly after 6:00. The last three nights I've averaged about 4½ hours sleep. Not because I'm sleeping poorly. But because I'm waking up full of energy, unable to go back to sleep. And I am definitely not a morning person. LOL!

I wonder if this is anything like what it feels like to be manic. It happened to me once before. I was around 4 years sober, clearly headed into a divorce. Somehow I had come to the realization that my life could be great despite my circumstances, if I just let it. I thought I ought to be feeling like my life was falling apart, but I was—energetic, aware and needing little sleep. I didn't wind up crashing either.

The step-children have been back for more than a full day; it was nice while it lasted. Had another very frustrating interaction with Nimue, which I handled a little better than I often do. These kinds of things have been prime suspects for the cause—whatever that means—of my depression in the past, at least in my own mind. Nevertheless, the good mood continues for now.

Channeling HP

2007-08-26T13:50:00.000-04:00

Today's entry from Daily Reflections:

Giving It Away

Though they knew they must help other alcoholics if they would remain sober, that motive became secondary. It was transcended by the happiness they found in giving themselves to others.
Alcoholics Anonymous, p.159

Those words, for me, refer to a transference of power, through which God, as I understand Him, enters my life. Through prayer and meditation, I open channels, then I establish and improve my conscious contact with God. Through action I then receive the power I need to maintain my sobriety each day. By maintaining my spiritual condition, by giving away what has been freely given to me, I am granted a daily reprieve.

Early in sobriety, I would have been skeptical that I could ever practice the 12^th step because of the joy I received rather than because it would keep me sober. Today, I absolutely know that's true. Sometimes, I even experience it!

It is not only a way for the Higher Power to enter my life. It is a way for him/her/it to enter the lives of those I help. For whatever reason, the Higher Power cannot or does not express love for us mortals directly (at least in my experience). I think instead he/she/it relies on us to establish contact with other people and, when we are open to being such channels, his/her/its love flows through us and into the other person. The steps of A.A. (also the Ten Commandments and probably the precepts of other—non-Jewish, non-Christian, non-Islamic—religions, as well as the moral precepts of right vs. wrong that most people learn as children) can be seen as suggestions as to how to prepare ourselves to become such channels.

Updated at 23:40 26 Aug:

Whoops! Forgot to give it a title.

Big Book leather cover

2007-08-25T15:05:00.001-04:00

Here's a picture of my Big Book (it's a 15-year old 3^rd edition). The leather cover was a gift, given me by Revson shortly after he started attending A.A. On top of it sit the business card of the artist who made the cover and my latest sobriety medallion. If you can't read her business card, here's what it says (slightly modified—I've mangled her her phone number and e-mail address):

Leather Book Covers
100% Handmade Custom Personalized
For Recovery Books
Narcotics Anonymous/Alcoholics Anonymous

Sharon Diehl
Leather Artist
Woodstock, GA
404-406-XXXX
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Covering & protecting books that change lives!

The personalized part, at least in the case of mine, means my first name, last initial and sobriety date emblazoned on the front inside flap. If you're interested in getting one from her, I suggest you e-mail her.

New pic of me

2007-08-25T11:40:00.001-04:00

I'm retiring the headshot I've been using since I first started blogging 3 or so years ago. This one's an actual picture of me, or at least of one of what I think is my best features: my eyes. The old skull X-ray seemed too impersonal, though it was certainly anonymous. This one might have been better, or this one, but for now I think I'll stick with the real me.

The simple truth about me

2007-08-25T08:16:00.000-04:00

I love the succinctness and plain honesty of today's entry from Daily Reflections:

The Gift of Bonding

Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.
Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 63

Many times in my alcoholic state, I drank to establish a bond between myself and others, but I succeeded only in establishing the bondage of alcoholic loneliness. Through the A.A. way of life, I have received the gift of bonding—with those who were there before me, with those who are there now, and with those yet to come. For this gracious gift from God, I am forever grateful.

I can so identify!

My new pink cloud

2007-08-24T20:21:00.001-04:00

OK. I got frustrated by the difficulty of filling my replacement script for fluoxetine (Prozac). I was pissed and then grudgingly pleased to discover it was the pharmacy's fault all along but pleased at how easy it was to finally get it filled. But now I'm very surprised to realize that I'm feeling much better this week. More energy. Getting more done. Waking more easily. Sleeping far better (I knew all along Prozac was giving me sleeping problems for the several years I've been taking it). What to do?

Alf, LaTroy and Thorn (step-children) are out-of-state visiting Mobs Sissy (their sister) and Deadbeat Dad (their father). Alf was away the week before. Maybe that's why I feel so good.

I've broken some bad habits I was getting into. Maybe that's why I feel better.

Mom and Dad seem to have recovered their health. Both being 85, that's no small accomplishment. While Ferdinand and OneEighty, Sis and Dean-o, Doppelganger and HennaLoge, and Nimue and I—and some of our children as well—were providing them meals and doing their chores, I was mentally preparing myself for the possibility of devoting a substantial portion of my life to their care. Even to the point of possibly having to resign my service position. But they're back on their own.

Maybe it's just part of the normal cycle of ups and downs and I'd forgotten how good the ups can be.

Nah, I don't think so. My fantasy when I first had trouble with the prescription was that I'd get so depressed I'd kill myself and then Nimue and my children could sue the pharmacy for causing my death. That's about as close to a suicidal thought as I ever get. Still it's a bad sign. The week before last was not particularly good. Nimue and I had some disagreements. I felt depressed.

I've been off the Prozac for about 3 weeks now. With a half-life of 2 weeks, the level in my body would be about a third of what it's been for several years (except for my two brief voluntary experiments to see how I felt if I went off it). Is that a good level for me currently? If so I could cut back to 20mg per day from 60.

I discussed my situation a little with AdenineLush this afternoon, while we were talking on another matter. As I said then, the replacement medicine hasn't shown up yet, so I don't need to decide right now. While not a medical professional, she has quite a bit of practical knowledge about psychoactive drugs. I expected her to be skeptical about me going off the stuff, but after asking me a few questions, she wasn't.

This again raises in my mind questions about the interplay of the chemical and the spiritual. Once more, will I have found myself struggling with what I thought were spiritual issues, when all along they were only chemical deficiencies (or surpluses) in my brain? I've got to learn to do my best and simply leave the outcomes in the merciful hands of my Higher Power.

Afterlife

2007-08-24T19:10:00.000-04:00

Speaking of the afterlife, I ran across this today and got a nice chuckle out of it:

Creator's comment: Fifth dynasty hieroglyphic depicting a misplaced afterlife.

Spirituality

2007-08-24T13:47:00.000-04:00

Today's entry from Daily Reflections:

A Riddle That Works

It may be possible to find explanations of spiritual experiences such as ours, but I have often tried to explain my own and have succeeded only in giving the story of it. I know the feeling it gave me and the results it has brought, but I realize I may never fully understand its deeper why and how.
As Bill Sees It, p. 313

Words are natural things, non-spiritual. Therefore they are very limited. Feelings are spiritual. Therefore they are unlimited, full of nuance and variety. It is similar with thoughts, though perhaps to a lesser degree. If we hear a limited explanation—in words—that resonates with our previous experience, we are perhaps able to recall the feelings associated with our experience. But in truth, we really have no idea whether what we're recalling bears any relation to what's being described. When I say something is red, how can I have any idea whether your subjective experience of red is the same as mine? There's doubtless scientific evidence—though I'm not familiar with it and too lazy to look it up right now—that my physical eyes and physical brain react similarly to electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength we call red. I myself trust that it does bear such a relation, to a lesser or greater degree.

Furthermore, I believe that after we die, our spirits live on. Our feelings continue, our communications with other spirits continues, but not with words, with a kind of spiritual language that allows us to express exactly what we are feeling and thinking. Furthermore, we become unable to dissemble, because doing so involves making our physical selves to speak and act differently than we really think and feel (some of us are better at this than others).

So who do we hang out with after we die? I think it's with people with whom we're compatible. Today I hang out with a bunch of recovering alcoholics, especially with those who are active in service. Back in the day, I hung out with a completely different crowd: the crowd that still gets together in the bars and clubs and parties I used to frequent. The places may change physically, but spiritually I'm sure they haven't changed much. And that, I believe, gives me a clue as to what are really meant by heaven and hell.

As I've heard in the rooms, "Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell; A.A. is for people who have been there and don't want to go back."

A Night of Celebration

2007-08-23T22:21:00.000-04:00

I received my 15-year medallion tonight from The Rock during the 38^th Anniversary of my regular Thursday night group. About 80 people showed up, 4 times the normal attendance. One of those 80 was Diego, who went on a two-week vacation in early July and hadn't been heard from since, despite a number of us making many calls to him. He now has two days sobriety and had the least time of anyone.

The speaker was Abbott, with 45 years of continuous sobriety—the most of anyone. Several things in his story struck me.

Early on in 1962, he was taken across the river and, on the way, told he was going to speak at the meeting.

"No," he protested, "I've only got six weeks!"

"Don't worry about it," he was told.

"Look, I'm so new I can barely figure out what I'm thinking at any given moment!"

"It'll be okay."

"No, I've got nothing to say! I'll be done in two minutes."

"Look kid," they finally said. "It's easy. All ya gotta do is talk and talk and talk and talk. If you hear yourself saying something you don't like, just don't say it next time. It's all lies anyway."

He talked about a time when he drove to the VFW for a night of drinking. Early in the morning he had come to, but the place was deserted. Finding it strange that no one was there, he went outside to see only two cars in the parking lot. Both were his. Apparently he had gotten so drunk, someone had driven him home. He had simply gotten in his other car and driven back.

He once met and heard Bill W.'s friend whom he call "Jim" who, as described on pp. 35-37 of the Big Book, found himself working for the concern he used to own and who had the insane idea that he could mix an ounce whiskey with his milk without being hurt. Only Abbott called him "Fred." I wonder if that was his real name? Anyway, I'm awed by these old-timers who actually knew the people talked about in the Big Book (one of my ambitions is to try to figure out who each person referred to really was and compile a list).

He closed by saying, "When I'm right with God, I can be right with myself. And when I'm right with myself, I can be right with you." I like that.

... in all our affairs

2007-08-23T09:22:00.000-04:00

One of my least favorite entries from Daily Reflections is today's.

Bringing The Message Home
Can we bring the same spirit of love and tolerance into our sometimes deranged family lives that we bring to our A.A. group?
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, pp. 111 -112

My family members suffer from the effects of my disease. Loving and accepting them as they are—just as I love and accept A.A. members—fosters a return of love, tolerance and harmony to my life. Using common courtesy and respecting other's personal boundaries are necessary practices for all areas of my life.
— Daily Reflections for August 23

It says, "My family members suffer...". It does not say, "My family members used to suffer when I was still drinking...". Practicing these principles in the rooms of A.A. is so much easier than practicing them everywhere else, especially at home.

Nimue¹ can be co-dependent, critical, self-righteous and controlling. Just my opinion, LOL. In addition, she's generally an overly permissive parent. Do I need to point out that this sometimes leads to havoc in my own life? Still, her own brother, in telling me what a hero I was to him and his brothers for hanging in with this marriage, paraphrased
Rev. Tim Lovejoy telling Marge Simpson,, "As a trained marriage counselor, this is the first instance where I've ever told one partner that they were 100% right. It's all his fault. I'm willing to put that on a certificate you can frame."²

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions says, "It is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us." And I believe it.

The truth of this axiom hit me in the gut four years before I got sober (and more than eight years before we divorced), when Bitter Cookie announced that she had received an offer to go live with Idlerich and was thinking about taking him up on it. It knocked the wind out of me spiritually and, for whatever reason, led to the realization that I couldn't save the marriage by trying to change her.

Today I am trying to remember to use my own version of the 4^th step prayer³:

God, help me to show this person the same tolerance, pity, and patience that I would cheerfully grant a sick friend. This is a sick person, like me. How can I be helpful to them? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.

With faith and perseverance, may I come to see her the way I believe my Higher Power sees her—as just another human being, trudging through life with her own plateful of issues. Pray for us both.

¹ With this post I am introducing the cast of characters in my life, using my own personal mneumonics to keep them (and me) anonymous. There's an index to this cast on the sidebar to the left.

² Of course, he swore me to secrecy. It was gratifying though, and the memory of him saying that has helped to save my sanity more than once.

³ Based on the prayer on p. 67 in the Big Book.

Original thoughts

2007-08-22T16:05:00.000-04:00

There ain't very many of 'em. We generally repeat what we've heard from others. Judith, over at Vicarious Rising, wrote something new and original in her post today:

Sometimes you can stare in a mirror for a very long time and still not see what is there. You actually have to move a little so the light will change, then you can see something new revealed that had been in the shadows before.

Nice, eh? I thought so, too. And Judith gave me permission to use it. LOL!

If you don't move and stare hard enough at what you see, pretty soon you'll see nothing. Then if you look away at a blank wall, you'll see an afterimage of what you were staring at. Gee, sound familiar?

And even if I am staring in a mirror and moving a little to change the light, I'm convinced there's plenty I still don't see. Changing the light, moving a little: these are just ways to improve the chances of seeing what's really there. It's how I cooperate with my Higher Power, so that he can show me what I need to see.

The image above is from Metal Shop Designswho make "truly original and very unique" furniture pieces.

Also, I tried to insert the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for a bilabial trill (better known to most of us as a Bronx cheer or a raspberry) after "Gee, sound familiar?" but I didn't think anyone would have any idea what it was since it comes out looking like this:

Can anybody help?

2007-08-22T14:52:00.000-04:00

This is a post about a Blogger HTML question I have. If you don't know what that means, you'll probably get extremely bored if you bother to continue reading.

I want to caption my images in such a way that text continues to flow around them. Why? I really like the way the text flows around the images but, for example, I'm afraid people will think the first image in my post Home, Sweet Home is of Roland when it's really of Dr. Jung. I found a this web page, which I thought would solve my problem, but it didn't. Then I thought maybe I could use the tips there to help me figure out a way, but so far I've been unsuccessful.

Can anyone help?

Please pray for Nicole

2007-08-22T13:18:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Nicole's blog post for today. I urge everyone who read this to pray for her recovery, not just from alcoholism, but also from being haunted by the ghosts of her past. Stories like hers make it most difficult for me to believe that my Higher Power really knows what he's doing and has the universe under control. In the end, I can only have faith that it's so. These kinds of stories make it extremely hard. And unfortunately, I've come to believe that having a story like Nicole's is far more common than most people realize.

Home, sweet home

2007-08-20T22:15:00.000-04:00

I love my home group. We had our monthly business or group conscience meeting tonight. I saw something I've never seen in any meeting before. There was a motion and a second to adjorn, but it was voted down. Instead, we spent some extra time reviewing one of the results of our last group inventory and, as a result, made some changes to our format.

Earlier we read from "There Is a Solution" in the Big Book, pp. 25 to the end of the chapter. Some thoughts on three short sections of what we read. First:

[I]f we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help (. 25).

Some alcoholics believe they were born so. Others believe they were alcoholics from their first drink. Early in my drinking, I believe I could have quit without much trouble, had I decided to. That would have been through human aid, namely, my own. By the end of my drinking, I believe I could not have quit without the intervention of my Higher Power. I had tried it on my own, without success. Therefore, at some point I must have crossed the line into the region referred to out of some other region.

Second:

Further on, clear-cut direction are given showing how we recovered. These are followed by forty-two personal experiences.

Each individual, in the personal stories, describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God (p. 29).

If you had asked me in the beginning what the purpose of the personal stories in the back of the Big Book was, I'd have said, "To show how people have recovered." This is not incorrect. It's consistent with the purpose of the Big Book as stated in the foreword to the first edition (p. xiii in the fourth edition): "to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered " [emphasis in original]. But notice what is implied here on p. 29: that the purpose is to show how people have found God. And this is consistent with the explicitly stated as stated on p. 45: "to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem." I was many years sober before I really saw this statement.

Third:

A certain American business man had ability, good sense, and high character. For years he had floundered from one sanitarium to another. He had consulted with the best known American psychiatrists. Then he had gone to Europe, placing himself in the care of a celebrated physician (the psychiatrist, Dr. Jung) who prescribed for him....

This was Frederick Roland Hazard, president of the Solvay Process Company, known to A.A. historians as Roland Hazard (this link is where I derived much of the narrative that follows the next quotation).

Members of the Hazard family were among the first settlers of the State of Rhode Island. The family fortune derived largely from its textile manufacturing business at Peace Dale, but also from mining and railroad as well has chemical interests. Hazards have been known through generations for many contributions. Caroline Hazard, sister of Frederick R. Hazard, was a prolific author, artist, and president of Wellesley College, 1899-1910. Their grandfather, Rowland Gibson Hazard (1819-1888), was not merely a successful business man, but a philosophical writer who corresponded with John Stuart Mill and was a friend of William Ellery Channing, founder of Unitarianism. The family in Central New York was long active in May Memorial Unitarian Church, Syracuse, which linked many social activists. The family has been known especially for social concerns such as abolition of slavery, treatment of the insane and of alcoholics [!!! —Ed], as well for innovative employee programs.

After the incidents described in the Big Book, Rowland set out to find a spiritual solution. What he found was the Oxford Group. In 1934, Rowland was living in Vermont with two other members of the Oxford Group named Cebra Graves and Shep Cornell. Cebra's father was a judge who at the time had decided to sentence an alcoholic named Ebby Thacher to six months in a mental institution.

Ebby, who also came from a prominent family, had been painting the family house. Having become excessively irritated by a flock of birds coming by to torment him, Ebby had gotten out his shotgun and started shooting at the birds. This had bothered the neighbors sufficiently that they had called the police, who had arrested him.

Rowland went to court and convinced the judge to release Ebby into his custody instead. As a direct result of Rowland's intervention, Ebby was living later that year in New York City at the Calvary Mission, run by Rev. Sam Shoemaker instead of being an involuntary guest of a mental institution in Vermont. He was thus able to carry the message of recovery to Bill W. and become Bill's sponsor. I guess this makes Rowland Bill's grand-sponsor. As I understand, Rowland remained in the Oxford Group and never joined A.A.

Anniversary

2007-08-18T08:07:00.000-04:00

This garden-variety drunk been continuously sober for quite a few 24 hours now: 5,478 of them to be exact. Fifteen years, as of today. What a miracle!

I was about 5 when I had my first taste of alcohol. I was 16 when I had my first drink. I drank for 26 years, almost to the day. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought my life was over, that it had gone from color to black and white. I didn't have enough courage to kill myself, so I thought I'd live out my days glumly, pitifully and hopelessly. And now that I've been sober for 15 years, it's nothing like that at all.

If you persist, remarkable things will happen. When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstances.
— Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 100

Today I am grateful for:

My Higher Power
Bill W. and Dr. Bob
The program of Alcoholics Anonymous
The fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous—all its members, past and present

It is to these, and no one else, that I owe the best 15 years of my life (so far)!

I Forgot

2007-08-17T22:21:00.000-04:00

Those of us of a certain age might find this video amusing. Let's not be a glum lot and let's be sure not to take ourselves too damn seriously!

Death, Jails and Institutions

2007-08-17T15:49:00.000-04:00

[This post was inspired by one I read over at Stop, Drop, Recover and the comment I left there, most of which I repeat here.]

I too am a former first responder on a volunteer ambulance squad. I too have seen a wide swath of death created by drug abuse and particularly alcohol, including the following incident, which haunts me to this day.

One winter night, a man went out with his friends to celebrate the birth of his child. Afterwards, they dropped him off—drunk—in front of his house. He never made it indoors. Neighbors found him the next morning frozen to death outside his front door.

He was lucky. Imagine the suffering his wife and child have been through, will continue to go through for the rest of their lives. There are a lot of scary stories about us alkies dying from our disease. But I believe there's a worse fate in store for me if I ever pick up a drink.

Maybe I'll kill someone. Run them down with my car. My cousin's wife ran over his own baby daughter and killed her. He's had to live with that for more than twenty years. And it wasn't even his bottom; he went on drinking for several months afterwards. Maybe I'll accidentally decapitate a friend without even knowing it, like John Kemper Hutcherson did three years ago. Or maybe I'll spend a few years as a wet-brain before dying, like I believe William Roscoe Kintner did. You'd never know it (i.e. that he had a wet-brain [added 22 Aug]) from his obituary, but I knew him personally. I think about the difference between him as a vibrant and reknowned teacher of mine in college, and him as an old man with a permanent dazed and unresponsive expression on his face, slowly and painfully shuffling his way to the Post Office—a distance of a few hundred feet at most—to get his mail.

These thoughts scare me. They remind me there are fates worse than death, and that we alcoholics are particularly prone to them.

God save me from myself!

Dishonesty

2007-08-16T17:15:00.000-04:00

I'm listening NPR's All Thing Considered as I type. Robert Siegel just finished a story about the current credit crisis and the phenomenon of sub-prime lending. He interviewed a reporter who cited two web sites that are prime examples of how to achieve dishonesty: one called Employment Verification Services that, for a fee, provides "assistance for those whom are not employed but need verification of employment for any purchasing purpose," and another called Fake Name Generator that will "make up a random name and address," as well an e-mail address, phone number, mother's maiden name, birthdate, credit card number (complete with an "expiration date... randomly generated to be a date in the near future") and Social Security number.

I suppose this is an example of HP's sense of humor, given that I just completed a post on Honesty not long ago.

Don't misunderstand me: I don't disapprove of such sites existing on the web. Although the former sure seems to offer unethical and immoral services, the latter certainly has some ethical and moral uses. In any case, the dishonesty doesn't actually occur until a user of such a website uses these services dishonestly.

Rx for Overhaul

2007-08-16T14:26:00.000-04:00

I blogged last week about my frustration in trying to get a couple of prescriptions filled. I called again my mail-order provider again and, after more inordinate time spent on hold, was told, "Everything is fine. There was a problem with your account, but it got straightened out on August 1^st. Unfortunately, we returned your prescriptions to you on July 31^st." To be fair, I was then transferred to someone who promised to contact my doctor's office directly and have the drugs sent to me right away. At least I didn't have to fill out the paperwork again and re-submit the prescriptions.

Nonetheless, this kind of problem—of which I am sure many thousands, if not millions, of Americans could give equally frustrating examples, many of them with much more extreme consequences—illustrates why the U.S. managed care system will inevitably wind up being completely overhauled, before too long and despite the special interests. It simply doesn't work well. And it costs too much, not only in dollars but also in patients' time, energy and wellness. Surely someone can come up with a new way of doing things that is better. Not perfect, but better.

Honesty

2007-08-16T13:12:00.000-04:00

At my home group Monday night, we read and discussed Bill W.'s excellent essay on "Honesty," as published in The Best Of Bill. This little book comprises a collection of articles originally written by Bill for the A.A. Grapevine (subscription required to access linked articles). I think these are them:

Here's how the "Honesty" essay begins:

THE problem of honesty touches nearly every aspect of our lives. There are, for example, the widespread and amazing phenomena of self-deception. There are those rather dreadful brands of reckless truth-telling, which are so often lacking in prudence and love. Then there are those countless life situations in which nothing less than utter honesty will do, no matter how sorely we may be tempted by the fear and pride that would reduce us to half-truths or inexcusable denials.

I think is what caught the attention of our leader. She had been hearing a lot about "brutal honesty"—Bill's "reckless truth-telling"—where she thought the speaker should have talked about "rigorous honesty." I was reminded of something I heard from Dinah, a very dear friend of 40+ years (a non-alcoholic). She said whenever she's tempted to say something, she uses three criteria for whether or not to actually speak:

Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it helpful?

I believe that true honesty is born of love and is therefore never unkind or unhelpful. It can be expressed extemely frankly, but only if the speaker's relationship to the listener is deep enough that frank won't be mistaken for unkind or unhelpful. The idea is that expressed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: "You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?" (Matthew 7:9)

Another excerpt from Bill's essay:

We must now leave the absorbing topic of self-delusion and look at some of those trying life situations which we have to meet foursquare and head on. Suppose we are handed an employment application that asks, "Have you ever suffered from alcoholism, and were you ever hospitalized?"...

I thought immediately about the several times in recovery when I've confronted this exact issue, whether on an employment application or some other form. It's a common dilemma, I think. I've always agonized when dealing with it. I've also asked for advice from my sponsor and from others in A.A. whom I respect. I won't reveal the conclusion I've come to—it's always been the same one—but I will tell you it goes against most of the advice I hear, including that of my sponsor. By the way, the remainder of the paragraph that Bill wrote in his essay implies that it's not that complicated and that, obviously, we should tell what he calls "the absolute truth" in such situations:

... Here, we AAs can assuredly make a good report of ourselves. Almost to a man we believe that nothing short of the absolute truth will do in situations of this type. Most employers respect our Fellowship and they like this rugged brand of honesty, especially when we reveal our AA membership and its results. Of course many another life problem calls for this identical brand of forthrightness. For the most part, situations requiring utter honesty are clean-cut, and readily recognizable. We simply have to face up to them, our fear and pride regardless. Failing to do this, we shall be sure to suffer those ever-mounting conflicts which can only be resolved by plain honesty.

As I say, the essay is excellent. It's also though-provoking. I'm inspired to get The Best of Bill the next time I see Grapevine material for sale.

How to find sober people at concerts

2007-08-13T22:23:00.000-04:00

Short answer: Look for yellow balloons.

Long answer: I read a post on Rex H.'s blog, What is your Deepest Fear?, called The Concert, in which he said:

I knew there would be booze and dope all around me but just figured I could handle it.... It took every darn second of praying my ass off to get through it. So the lesson learned is concerts sober are cool but bring a sober friend along for support!

I left a comment and actually remembered to check with my Deadhead sponsee. In front of the sound mixer is the correct location, but reliably so only for the Grateful Dead and only at festivals. A better bet, for any jam band, according to my sponsee, is to look for a table with yellow balloons. This will be staffed with sober people. At Grateful Dead performances these folks are known as Wharf Rats. Their website even includes meeting lists (although personally I wouldn't call these AA meetings, or NA meetings or any kind of "A" meetings, due to their affiliation with something other than than these recovery organizations).

I hope someone finds this information useful.

Random notes

2007-08-13T15:20:00.000-04:00

Noticed the first hint of Autumn in the air on Saturday. Boy, do I love Fall and Spring!

Drove almost 300km last night to the final AA group I was supposed to survey for the 2007 Membership Survey. There was bad news and good news. The bad news was that the group no longer exists. The good news is that the very first person I ran into, 5 seconds after entering the building, was the Assistant Pastor's wife, who knew that the group had folded quite a while ago, who personally knew the person whose name GSO had sent as the contact person for the group, and knew that this person had moved away. That explains why (1) when I tried calling, the contact's phone number was out of service, (2) the immediate past DCM had never heard of the Group, and (3) the local Intergroup knew nothing about the Group either. (The current DCM's phone number is out of service too and the rumor is that she moved to another Area).

Read nice post on ZaneJabbers blog from Saturday that's got me re-thinking how I share my story. I generally try to minimize the drinking stories, but perhaps I shouldn't. The key observation he makes is:

[T]he promises tell us that we don't forget the past nor do we wish to shut the door on it. Everytime I hear someone share that they don't like to talk about their drunkalog I think of this promise.

Membership survey

2007-08-10T22:33:00.000-04:00

It's the season of the triennial membership survey! Nineteen groups were randomly selected from our Area to be surveyed; I'm involved in three of those. I did one last week, one tonight and I'm doing one tomorrow night.

The one tonight was in the city, about a 40 km drive, at 7:00 pm. Traffic was awful, even though it was mostly into the city on a Friday night, rather than out of the city. I planned to allow an hour for what Google maps said was a 40-minute drive. I left a few minutes late, then realized on the way down that there was a baseball game starting at 7:35. I hit mid-town—thinking I had just enough time to arrive as the meeting began—and started back out the other side. Then traffic really slowed down.

Parking was non-trivial. I drove around the block in widening circles with looking for a parking space. Finally, on my second circuit, just as I passed a big blue tour bus (it looked sorta like this, but without the side windows), I found one. Only two half-blocks away from the meeting too. I arrived 15 minutes into the meeting. Wow, do I hate being late for meetings. It's only happened a few times out of what must be about 3,000 by now.

It was a small meeting—13 people plus me. Loads of people [non-members] wandering in and out of the meeting room. Another of my pet peeves: what do newcomers, trying desperately to stay anonymous, think when all these folks come in and out, in and out? Personally, I don't care who knows I'm there, but I also know a school teacher who lost her job after a [non-alcholic] student saw her in a closed A.A. meeting and let everybody at school know.

After half an hour I had the gist of this topic meeting: resentments and "practicing these principles in all our affairs."
The woman sitting in front of me even shared the resentment she had been developing during the meeting about all the strangers coming and going. So I didn't have to. Turns out that this was unusual for this meeting; a wedding rehearsal had been going on upstairs. After she shared, I raised my hand, apologized for being late, and made a brief announcement inviting everyone to stay for 5 minutes after the meeting to fill out a survey. They all did, though one member joked that now he had a resentment about that.

Here's an interesting fact. I've done a few of these—some in 2004 and the two this year—and the most common question people have is always the same: what's the name of this group? I always get a chuckle out of that.

I gathered from the sharing that I heard during the meeting that there was some good sobriety in the room. After collecting all the surveys, I found myself in conversation with one of the women who struck me as such. She confirmed that about half the group (herself included) had 20 years or more of continuous sobriety. She asked where I had come from. I asked her if she knew the small suburban town I'm from and she said, not only did she know it, but she'd been there.

In fact, her roommate from rehab in 1969 had been from the same town. She couldn't recall her roommate's name, only the first name of her husband: Bruce. Within a minute or two, I had figured out who it was and she confirmed the name when I said it. Jean was one of the first recovering alcoholics I met in A.A. fifteen years ago, likely at my very first meeting. Several of her children, roughly of the same age as I am, are also in recovery. Bruce died a year ago March and Jean a year ago July with—I think—over 30 years of sobriety.

Jean was one of those rare people whom I knew both when she were drinking and in sobriety. There's a great story her daughter-in-law tells of when she was dating her now-husband. Jean passed out at the dinner table and her face plopped right down into the mashed potatoes... and everyone went on as though nothing had happened. From what I know, I don't think anything unusual had happened. This was nothing like the Jean I got to know many years later. She helped a lot of alcoholics.

That in itself is a pretty good story. In fact, I was already planning to post about it as I walked away from the church. I turned the corner a half block up the street and noticed, right next to the big blue tour bus—which was still there—a well-known bar where many decent bands perform, and not just local ones. How ironic, I thought. I'd never been there, though I've often thought about it.

I came home and Googled the bar to see whose big blue tour bus it was. I'm not gonna tell you her name, but I will quote from something I found about her:

You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried. [Her] songs—an aural outpouring of her extreme, intense life—are as dramatic as any movie. And [she] admits that sometimes her life, with ups and downs including tour bus accidents, fighting for the custody of her young sister after the death of their only parent, and record industry fiascos, is more like a horror movie. Through it all, though, this versatile, cool rock chick maintains her humor—sometimes with a little help from a bottle of Maker's Mark. And [her] life-to-date--in all its gutsy glory, uncertainty and down-to-earth vulnerability and power, can be heard in the songs [of] her latest CD...

Sounds like we should save her a seat. The pic above is of her, self-described as doing a morning talk show while drunk. Ha!

Going to any length

2007-08-10T12:00:00.000-04:00

Now, this an extreme example of what I think of when I hear the phrase "going to any length." And I have to admit, it's probably more than I would have been willing to do in order to get sober. I think I would have insisted on seeing some connection between what I was being asked to do and how it would help get me sober. But then, I'm one of those people who was in danger of being too smart to get the program.

Despite what "How It Works" has to say about being willing to go to any length, my experience is that if I put part of the effort into getting and staying sober that I put into getting and staying drunk, then my HP will get and keep me sober. So far, I think I've gone well beyond that. Consequently, I think I enjoy pretty good sobriety. And, lest you wonder, so does my sponsor. LOL. My aim is spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

Since I was a teenager—and that was a long time ago—I've been fascinated by the balance between God's grace and human freedom. Grace was pretty much an intellectual concept at the time, and remained so until I came to AA. Today it is very real. Today I believe two things very strongly¹. One, that I have to do certain things to remain sober. The Big Book tells us this over and over again. Its promises are contigent upon our maintenance of a solid spiritual foundation. Two, it is completely a matter of God's grace that I am sober today. I am a living example of God's grace and of God's mercy: of his grace in that I got something I didn't deserve, and of his mercy in that I didn't get what I did deserve.

Sometimes I think everything that's really important can be expressed as a paradox. I find them over and over again in the rooms of AA. Neils Bohr said, "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." Put another way, Bohr recognized "two sorts of truth: trivialities, where opposites are obviously absurd, and profound truths, recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth."

Wow, I really have come some ways down off that icy mountain-top of intellectualism.

¹Okay, I believe in more than just these two things. But here they are anyway.

The Late Late Show

2007-08-09T15:40:00.000-04:00

I've been having more and more trouble sleeping over the last couple of years. I have lots of theories as to why, but they are irrelevant to the theme of this post.

I often use television to put me to sleep (despite what some people say). Eventually I wound up watching The Late Late Show. For the very first time. On 18 February 2007. I had never heard of Craig Ferguson before. That night's show got to me. On top of everything else I liked—especially including his rant about comedians kicking celebrities when they're down-and-out—it turns out that I'd gotten sober six months to the day after he did.

On many nights since, if I've been up at 12:35 am, I've tuned in, at least for his monologue. Last night was one of those nights. In some ways I regret that I watched that night's show first, because although there's a lot to like—it's always been a disappointment since. And after a monologue like that, how could it be otherwise?

If Mr Ferguson is a member of the same Fellowship that I am, I'd have to say he tip-toed right along that thin grey line of the 11th Tradition. He never mentioned Alcoholics Anonymous explicitly, but you'd have to have been pretty ill-informed not to know what he was referring to when he said help was "easy to find; right there near the front of the phone book." Celebrities breaking their anonymity is one of my pet peeves. Did Ferguson? Or did he not? If he's not a member, then he certainly did not. If he is a member, then either he did or he came about as close as one possibly can without doing so. And since he's the only one who can determine whether or not he's a member, I guess I'll never know. Unless I happen to run into him some day and have the chance to ask.

Once I did confront a non-celebrity who broke his anonymity. It didn't go in any direction I had imagined. But that's a post for another day.

Prozac

2007-08-08T14:14:00.000-04:00

Also known as N-methyl-3-phenyl-3-[4-(trifluoromethyl)phenoxy]-propan-1-amine, C₁₇H₁₈F₃NO, Fluoxetine hydrochloride, or, most commonly, Prozac, I've been on this drug for several years. Twice I've tried going off it and twice I've decided that was a bad idea. Now I've gone off it again. Without tapering off as recommended. But not by choice. The mail-order pharmacy refused to fill the new prescriptions my doctor wrote (for Fluoxetine and Simvastatin) and I've run out.

When I got the rejection notice, I called them. At first they said they needed to get a diagnosis.

"What?" I said. "You've been sending me these drugs for years. What has changed?"

"Hold on, please," they said.

Eventually they handed me off to a specialist. I probably spent ½ hour on the phone, maybe a total of 5 minutes talking to him. The summary of what he finally said is, "Your wife's insurance plan shows you as her child and since you are over 23 years old, you are not covered. Oh, and we don't know how to get in touch with her employer's benefits manager and can't give you a phone number for them."

"What?" I said. "You've been sending me these drugs for years. What has changed?"

"Let's see." Long pause. "I can't see anything prior to last October."

The last time I sent in new prescriptions was about a year ago. I've been getting refills every 90 days or so since.

Of course my wife was on vacation in some semi-wilderness park. I called and left a message on her mobile phone. When she returned home, I was away at an A.A. Convention. Her mobile had died. She finally got the message after returning home. Today she contacted the benefits people at work. They said that I'm listed as her husband and that nothing has changed. Grrrrrr!

It's been over a week now. The half-life of Fluoxetine is something like 2 weeks. I suppose I'm slowly getting depressed. It sure has felt like it, but that pre-dates my running out of medication.

For years I used my program to fight the consequences of my depression. What an odd feeling when taking a pill drastically amelioriated those consequences. Here I had been thinking it was a spiritual battle, but apparently it was only chemical. I still haven't reconciled myself to this, but I'm resigned to continuing on the medication. Experience has proven that it's not fair to those around me—primarily my family—to try to deal with my depression on my own.

Can someone please e-mail me some Prozac?