My failed attempt at an audio post

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

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).

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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

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. ☺

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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

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

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

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

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
ShaForNA91 at yahoo dot com
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

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

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

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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

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.

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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?

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

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

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

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

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!