An Egomaniac with an Inferiority Complex

The title of this blog is another fine definition of an alcohic.  As a recovered alcoholic I can now see where this can be true for me.  Even after 19 years of not drinking I sometimes struggle with feelings of remorse, depression and inferiority.  I'm not cured.

I will say this...I am happiest when I am being of service to my Higher Power and stretching to give a hand up instead of a hand-out to another suffering human being.  Alanon in this arena of operations is significantly powerful because it lights the pathway of recovery so I can stay on track and not fall into the abyss...if I work the program. 

Today I go see my doctor because something abnormal showed up on blood labwork taken last week.  Jeesh.  I fear having to hear whatever it is and what will it mean but a part of recovery is accepting the responsibility of self-care.  I so admire people who seem to be smooth, compliant, not a bump in the road in taking care of themselves.  Whereas I struggle to submit to this simple process and just do the next right thing.  I'm grateful there are others available to reach across the great divide...I'm not alone.

Anyway, even though Cecilia and her husband, Carey, are on their road trip, she calls and encourages me by sharing her experience, strength and hope.  I love to hear her stories of adventure while traveling around the country.    She says there are meetings aplenty and I guess it's true about the Fellowships, "There are no strangers amongst us, merely friends we haven't met yet."  There's no reason to stay alone, isolated, socially withdrawn.  These are some of the symptoms of the spiritual malady we can suffer with if we stop going to meetings and stop being with like-minded folk.

Well, just for today, may I do GOD's will and be of service...it's not enough for me to talk, think or blog about it.  I must do the work.  GOD-willing and the creek don't rise...I'm on my adventure.

A Close Call...

I wrote the blog but I touched the download picture icon and a pop-up window said it was an error so the blog vanished.  Just like that.  Poof.  Unsaved.  Deleted.  My feelings are expressed by a tightening in my stomach, a welling froth of anger coming up my throat, a frowning brow and turned down lips.  Just like that.  One second I'm happy, finished my blog...next minute....grrrrrr.  Then Sho walked into the room.  Inside me, I felt an impulse to blame him, lash out at him, tell him it was all his fault because I'm in a hurry to do my blog before taking him to drop him off at Tio Fred's this morning. Grrr...  Then he asks, "Are you all right?"  I want to let him have it.

But I don't.

Gently I tell him, "No.  I just lost my blog that I worked so hard to finish early this morning."

"Oh.", he says then he goes to finish whatever he was doing.

Whew...the program kicks in just in the nick of time...we cease fighting everything and everybody...love and tolerance is our code...a day at a time.

Just For Today

Well, this morning I drive Sho to Chuco's house (his cousin) then I plan to dropoff some recycle stuff, come back to the house and clean Hunter's (my car) upholstery.  Later, I'll give Hunter a bath at the carwash.  Elvis might get a bath this morning, too.  I'm not as motivated to bathe Elvis because after taking the time to clean and groom him usually he will run outside to roll in the dirt. Sometimes his face is so cute and I tell him he looks like a Geisha dog with the dry powdered dirt outlining his eyes, mouth and face.  He acts like he's very proud of himself as he walks with his head up and his tail waving high fives.  Adorable.  I feel so happy with my dog.  He's a nice companion to keep me company while I read, work in the garden, etc.  He is really something else and I admire him so much.  There are times when he embarrasses me and I tell him to stop.  Mainly when I take him with me to town because whenever he sees people walking by or towards Hunter, especially if a person is "flying" a sign like, "Hungry...will work for food" on a street corner, Elvis lunges at them as he snarls, growls and barks like he's going to hurt them.  Jeesh.  He's calming down but it is a process.

Today is when I get myself to an AA, an Alanon then a Spanish Alanon meeting.  This is part of my treatment plan. Whether I like it or not, it is important in the recovery process.  A large part of my conversation today will center around recovery from a ruthless, indiscriminate, deadly fatal spiritual malady and what it takes to stay recovered.  My illness is in remission on a daily basis.  I am not cured and will never be "cured" of this illness.  This remission relies on my honesty, openmindedness, and willingness to stay on task with the 12 Steps and avoid ass-mosis.  Starting the day by reading pages 86-88 of the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous", beginning with the paragraph "On awakening..."is guaranteed powerful medicine for it helps set the structure for the rest of the day.  The ideal.  Sobriety (a healthy, happy, joyous and free state of heart, mind, soul and spirit) is contingent on connecting and staying connected to carrying the vision of GOD's Will in all my affairs or activities.  Just for today may I do GOD's Will.  

JUST FOR TODAY

Lord, just for today, I will not fight You,

Nor anticipate Your desires for me.

Just for today, I will be happy

Doing Your will, instead of my own.

Just for today, I will laugh more, and complain less.

Just for today, I will not only count,

But see, my blessings.

I will remember that home is heart, And not hearth.

Just for today, I will not belittle myself;

Goodness knows, there are plenty of others To do that for me.

Just for today, I will remember that I am a child of God,

And that in belittling myself,

I belittle the One who made me.

Just for today, I will remember that You are not only with me,

But that You are holding me close.

Just for today, I will feel special to myself;

And I will love me, even as You have loved me.

Just for today, The only person I will rescue is myself.

I will not try to save the world, just for today.

Just for today, I will feel peace;

Knowing that there is Someone greater than I 

To deal with my problems.

Just for today, I will allow You to be God. I will be Your reflection.

I will not try to create You in my image.

Just for today, I will cease to block Your love,

And I will allow the passion within me, 

To embrace the lover of my soul.

Investing in Spiritual Insurance

These notes help start my day.  If they help anybody else at any time, I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to share and be of service.  


On some days, Life flows so awesomely smooth, effortlessly the moments go by, not a pebble in sight.  Other days are rough.  There are boulders piled, the rapids rush, and there's a huge drop around the next bend. It's been my experience working the Steps is even more important on the smooth days.   This is how to invest in insurance for any problems that will surely occur along the way.  


Bad things do happen to good people.  Vice-versa.  It's nothing personal (kewl...one of the 4 agreements!).   "...sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:44-46 KJV


The challenge is to invest time, effort and work when there's not a cloud in the sky, not a blip on the radar indicating any kind of problem.  BUT who the heck wants to be going to a meeting, reading the literature, praying and meditating, taking the time to write---put pencil to paper---, help another suffering person, or anything like this when the sun is shining, everything's going my way with not a care in the world?  


Not me.  I'm lazy, selfish, greedy, insensitive and inconsiderate...just to name a few of my character defects.  It takes discipline, something I seem to naturally lean far toooo much one way or tooooo much the other.  Jeesh.  Too lefty-loosey or too righty-tighty.  Anyway, if I just work the program I let the Higher Power discipline me on a daily basis, a 24 hour period, to build the equity needed for that inevitable moment in Life when I most need the program to kick in. To connect me automatically to that Power Greater than any human being, who can help no matter what, who can and will help if sought...

Baby Steps to Flying

When first arriving to the rooms of the 12 Steps, my sponsor named Charity kept reminding me that I was a baby in recovery.  I certainly believed her because I was down on my knees which is what brought me to AA in the first place!  King Alcohol completely, irrevocably whipped my butt.  Down on my knees indeed.

I kept wanting to run, fly, know all the Steps, know-it-all, be all this and be all that.  I'd be hard on myself, expecting more and better.  Critical, judgmental, beating myself up for any and everything.  As if I had no right to make a mistake and then beat myself up for thinking this!  There is a part in the movie "Liar, Liar" where Jim Carey perfectly portrays this phenomena of self-castigation.  He violently throws himself against walls, jerking, slapping, ruffling his body here, there, everywhere then after a while finally staggers out of the restroom.  A man says something like, "Oh, my god, what happened to you!"  "I'm kicking my ass!", replies Jim.  Hilarious.  Yep.  It's like that.

The Steps are powerful medicine for what ails the Spirit.  So are the slogans.  "Easy Does It" saved me over and over.  Charity encouraged me to "Easy Does It", to not be so hard on myself.  As an alcoholic early in recovery, a "baby", it was important to stop sucking on a bottle, can or goblet of alcohol as the solution to all problems.

What qualifies me as an alcoholic is not how much alcohol I drink.  It is the EFFECT alcohol has on me.  It changes me.  Something biochemically happens.  It has something to do with the hardwiring in my brain.  I am abnormal in this respect because a normal person does not lightup like a pinball machine just thinking about taking a drink.  Normies report drinking almost feels boring to them.  Sometimes I wonder if they are honest about their experience but I must honor their truth the same way I want my truth honored.  Because the truth for me is alcohol transformed me.  I grew ten feet tall, stronger, braver, sexier, cuter, smarter, and so much more.  It became my best friend.  I cried into many a beer as it nursed me through whatever "tragedy" presented.  It seemed to do for me what nothing else did.  Eventually, somewhere along the way, I crossed an invisible line.  The line of no return.  In the same way a cucumber can be changed to a pickle but never changed back to a cucumber so it is with a social drinker who becomes alcoholic...never to return back, although will try everything to prove differently even at the cost of their life or someone else's. 


It seemed every thought led straight to getting high as better than anything else.  My relationship with alcohol reigned supreme.  No one and nothing else mattered. Anyway, instead of a friend, an ally, alcohol became my greatest enemy, King Alcohol.  I had to be beaten down to submit to a power greater than me to help conquer this cunning, powerful and baffling life-threatening enemy which headquartered in my brain's thoughtlife.  


That's how it was for me when first arriving to the 12 Steps.  I felt ready and willing to do anything to stop the hurting, the pain, the craziness.  I was beat down.  That's how I became available to be Honest, Open-minded and have the Willingness to pickup the simple spiritual tool kit laid at my feet.  The 12 Steps, the slogans, prayer & meditation, meetings, phone numbers of other member of the Fellowship, the literature, a sponsor, etc.  As long as I remember this, I'll be fine.
  

I remember being a baby in this program as I crawled, scooted on my butt, toddled, bumped into furniture and others, weeble-wobbled, then walked, hopped, skipped, ran.  Now, sometimes, it seems I "fly" effortlessly soaring, gliding on the love given by my Higher Power as I aspire to be the person I was meant to be, kind of like the song "The Wind Beneath My Wings".  Then I forget to spread my wings in surrender.  I hold them close to me and I thud hard to the ground.  I forget to stop relying on me, myself and I.  One more time.  What works is to STAY HIGHER POWERED.  Jeesh.

The Gift called The Present

Life is so incredibly precious.  Truly a gift I squander when in the malady of the spirit.  If I can just stay in the present moment.  My life account has only so many minutes.  I hope and pray to spend them wisely, to love and be of service to my Higher Power that I choose to call "GOD", to me and to the rest of GOD's creations.

Back in the 60's there were posters saying, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life".  So, whew!  I had a chance for a fresh, new start only to end-up screwing up again and again, way off track, no program, no direction.  So what?  Reckless and thinking I'd just start again and again.


Now I work to remember to live my life as if this is it.  Not a dress rehearsal.  No retakes. I can die any minute.  No due notice.  That's it.  It's over.  So the question is:  If I knew I only had 24 hours to live, how would I choose to use up these precious life moments? 


OA has a saying, "Any day above ground is a good day." How true.  What a privilege to be here.  I can choose to embrace each moment as if it's the very last one or act like it really doesn't matter because, please believe me, I have a magical thinking mind.   I seem to have the uncanny ability to make a mountain out of a pimple or shrink wrap denial into a little bitty hangnail.  I even do this with life's moments when careless and not paying attention:


Riddle:  What's the price of life?
Answer:  Not paying attention.


So it's important for recovery from the malady of the spirit for me to stay on track, develop discipline, continue going to meetings, praying and meditating, work the Steps, read the literature, journal, using the phone to call program friends to stay connected, blah blah.  It's not enough to know the information.  I've got to put it into action and work with others.  This gives meaning and purpose to my life.  I'm not here just to eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work, a survival drone.  There is a higher purpose.  To stay connected by working the Steps leading to the Higher Power and help others work the Steps, etc. then the pay-off....... "We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny."---page 164, big book of "Alcoholics Anonymous"

The Inner Chaos

I had a co-worker ask me if I was in menopause because I reacted to a situation at work the other day.  Jeesh.  I didn't lose control, scream, holler, cuss, lash out, threaten to hurt, denigrate, degrade, bully, spew whatever entered my mind.  I do know how to do those things seeing as I am an expert at doing them from previous experience but I have never given myself the luxury of acting in this way at work.  

I expressed a difference of opinion.  I felt strongly about it and said so.  How dare I?  Who the hell am I to say how I really feel and think, especially if it isn't what the majority feels and thinks?  There must be something wrong with me.  Hilarious.  By the end of the discussion, believe me, I felt provoked and antagonized but I recognized my strings were being pulled so I disengaged.  I referred the situation to my boss, await to hear his perspective and decision then I'll support it.  He has the vision and responsibility to decide what direction we need to steer as a team.  I'll do everything I can, GOD-willing, to help. 


The 12 Steps empower me to stay steady on the path to my Higher Power which I need because one of the things I notice internally is the multitude of feelings that arise as a consequence in speaking my perspective.  The peer pressure is incredibly powerful.  It's as if I have displeased the "gods" and therefore must be banished after the royal ass thrashing I'm due for not bowing down, not acquiescing to their point of view.  The biggest fear that wells up is the fear  that I don't have THE RIGHT TO HAVE MY OWN POINT OF VIEW AND IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER WHAT IT IS ANYWAY.  THEY WIN.  I LOSE.


This has nothing to do with them.  Who's thinking all this?  Who's feeling it?  Who's saying it?  It's all about who?  Me, me, me.  This is the core of my illness.  Self-centered, self-will run riot, in my head.  However, my head loses its way if not connected to the Higher Power.  It also s-w-e-l-l-s and becomes the Big Head.  Spinning, spinning, spinning.  Thoughts whirling around and around creating a vortex of painful negativity, doubt, fear, despair, abandonment, neglect, terror, rejection, etc.  Its tornadic volume rises and falls with each thought casting debris throughout its path of destruction. And I haven't even gotten out of bed yet.  Jeesh.


The 12 Steps are necessary for my happiness because they act like anti-inflammatory medication for The Big Head.  The swelling eases.  It ceases to intrude, block, jar the doorway to the highway of my Higher Power which leads to Serenity, Peace of Mind and Happiness.  


Yes, yes, this all sounds corny, but what the heck.  It works for me.

Morning Prayer

Dear Lord,

So far I've done all right.

I haven't gossipped,

haven't lost my temper,

haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent.

I'm really glad about that.

But in a few minutes, God,

I'm going to get out of bed.

And from then on,

I'm going to need a lot more help.

  

The Problem and The Solution

I just finished writing my boss a letter and I'm getting ready to go to a doctor's appointment for my annual physical.  This is a quick blog for the day.  My friend, C., who is on her roadtrip vacation with her husband and 2 dogs gave me these printouts of The Problem and The Solution.  More gifts from the Universe.  Yeah!

The Problem

Many of us found that we had several characteristics in common as a result of being brought up in alcoholic or other dysfunctional households.

We had come to feel isolated and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures.       

To protect ourselves, we became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process.  All the same we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.

We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfil our sick need for abandonment.

We lived life from the standpoint of victims. Having an over developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We got guilt feelings when we trusted ourselves, giving in to others. We became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.

We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally.

We keep choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.

These symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism or other dysfunction made us 'co-victims', those who take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever taking a drink.

We learned to keep our feelings down as children and keep them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we often confused love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue.

Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable solutions.

This is a description, not an indictment. 

The Solution

IN ACA, we find the tools that enable us to put the past to rest, to heal and to build meaningful adult lives.

By attending meetings regularly, we learn to trust, to talk about our problems and to recognize, accept and express our feelings.

Through working the program daily we begin to change attitudes and habits that do not work into rewarding and productive ways of living.

The new understanding we find through sharing our experience, strength and hope with others improves our relationship with ourselves and others.

In addition to meetings, the tools of ACA include: The Twelve Steps; The Slogans; a Sponsor; the Traditions; Service to the Group; the Support of the Group and Telephone Contact.

The 12 Steps give us the tools to accept ourselves, to leave the shame behind and they provide us with a framework for living our day to day lives.

The Slogans help us to deal with stress.

Our Sponsor guides us through our program of recovery.

The Traditions insure that the Group will continue to be available to us.

Serving the Group strengthens both ourselves and the Group.

The Support of the Group provides us with the safety and acceptance we need to recover.

Telephone Contact allows us to reach out to others we relate to at any time.

Our experiences have shaped us. It is our responsibility to discover who we are, to build our self esteem and to repair any damage done to us or by us.

We are no longer alone. With the help of our program, we will recover.

Listen With My Eyes

You know, I can talk a good game.  Fast lips.  Creative thinker, thoughts twisting on the fly like a cat flying through air and landing on all its paws.  There's nothing wrong with this.  It's just that sometimes I can talk myself right into a corner.  I "think" I'm on the right track to where I'm headed only to thud into reality.  In the program there are no victims, merely volunteers.  How did I contribute to the situation?  What's my part in it?

I have a hard time with this because I much prefer to live in the virtual reality in my head than the reality that kicks my butt.  There is a contraption called "virtual reality glasses" that helps gamers play their video games.  Who needs these when I practically can live in the inner/outer spaces of my mind, free of charge, where I play so many games, all by myself, where no one else is really there except the avatars I create of them?  In the virtual reality of my mind I arrange the stage, place the actors, run the scripts, light control, direct the action, edit, wrap it up.  And in my mind, that's how it all SHOULD be.  Because I say so.  A "god" has spoken.  Crazy.   Jeesh.  

Out here in the real world there are other "gods" who have a strong commitment to their own virtual worlds.  When our worlds collide, the "gods" are at war.  Don Miguel Ruiz very eloquently describes this phenomena in "The Four Agreements" and "The Fifth Agreement".  Beautiful writing.  The Big Book of "Alcoholics Anonymous" also describes this perfectly.  On pages 60-61.  How we want to run the show.  "He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and self-sacrificing...Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?"  Yep.  Certainly that's where my best thinking can take me.  Logically, like Mr. Spock, I can figure it out but without the grace and guidance of my Higher Power, I am self-centered and ego-centric.  "The show doesn't come off very well."

Whereas when I rely on my Higher Power  who unerringly glides my world safely throughout the multiverses of you and me and everybody else, life flows so much better, sweeter, easier than with me in the control navigator seat.  

So, I may talk as smooth and fast as I want but when I listen with my eyes I can hear what my behavior is really saying loud and clear.  What's my message?  I may need to Let Go and Let GOD to find out.  

From google.com search I found:  Observe, not speak...If a person’s words say one thing and their nonverbal communication says another, you are wont to listen to the nonverbal communication – and that is usually the correct decision...Research has identified seven universally recognized facial expressions (joy, sadness, fear, surprise, anger, contempt, and disgust).  These emotions are expressed the same way for all people regardless of background or situation. So feel confident to get out there and start listening with your eyes

White Knuckle Dry vs. Sober

As a teenager I drank for the buzz.  The effects.  I felt magnanimous, a smooth operator and larger than life know-it-all.  The liquid courage gave me the social panache to act any way I wanted and be okay with this.  Not that everybody else liked the way I acted and I didn't care, especially while under the influence of King Alcohol.   The side effects sometimes got me.  Drank too much, woozy, the world spinning, puking.  Repentant of my wrongful ways I told myself, "Next time, it'll be different.  I'll stop in time."  And it was true.  A lot of the times I did.  B-u-t once in a while, I didn't and I paid the price.  One more time.

When I realized I was pregnant I stopped drinking so to avoid hurting my unborn child.  He was born January 5, 1976.  Then another son was born October 30, 1977, a daughter born February 8, 1979, another daughter December 14, 1980 and my last baby was a son born June 5, 1982.  All of them healthy, beautiful babies.  Finally I convinced the doctors to tie my tubes and the baby factory closed. All this time I had been white knuckle dry.

White knuckle dry for me is a state of body, mind and soul where I feel driven to control everything and I am responsible for everybody else's health, success and happiness.  If they aren't, I fail and am a failure so I redouble my efforts to make them happy so I could rest and be happy but things just get worse and worse.  The insanity winds tighter and tighter like a spring coil bound to snap one day.  Definition of insanity:  doing the same things over and over expecting different results but getting the same over and over. Jeesh.  I can still get there...definitely insane.

Anyway June 30, 1982, I relapsed.  I tried to drink my sorrows away but it didn't work.  I still had sole responsibility of my children and did the best I could but we were homeless, without their father who went to prison for possession of marijuana in the latter part of 1981.  I found a job in January of '82 but lost it in June because my car broke down, medical problems with pregnancy, etc.  We were penniless, without hope plus my youngest daughter had seizures which terrified me.  "It was all my fault" sang the chorus in my brain which overpowered the small voice in my heart that said anything different.  And I fought back.  Like the song, "I get knocked down, I get up again, ain't nothing gonna keep me down.  I get knocked down..."  I relied on my best thinking and truly did the best I could with what I had and knew during that time.  I was crazy but didn't know it.  Also throw in the hormonal stuff.  Jeesh.


My tone of voice, body mannerisms, facial expressions...fake, fake, fake.  People pleasing was top of my list.  Never let them see me cry.  Never let them see me sweat.  Try to keep it all tightly controlled deep within and smile, smile, smile as if I'm not terrified, overwhelmed, feeling almost right at the tip of out-of-control, on the edge and slipping.  White knuckle dry indeed. Clinging to whatever raveling threads of sanity I could find.  I remember well this painful time.  Where my insides were not congruent with my outside.  Living a lie.  I saw a poster of a little kitten with a paw barely hanging onto a tree branch...I felt empathy.

To me, sobriety is very different.  It is a freedom to truly be myself, inside congruent with outside.  No guessing, no faking.  It is a state of being where I am free to be me and so is everybody else.  Live and Let Live and for me to get the heck out of the way.  Let Go and Let GOD. When I use the spiritual tools to do the work...I'm set free...freedom from the Bondage of Self.  The 12 Steps are 100% guaranteed to work if I work it.  Truth is I'm lazy.  I don't wanna have to "work" it.  I want my freedom without having to do anything.  I want it by ass-mosis.  I want it to rub off from others as I leech on their sobriety and then complain about how the 12 Steps don't work while I keep holding back because it's too much work, I'll never get done, I'm a special case, it's somebody else's fault, etc.  Jeesh.  I heard the saying, "I can always tell I'm lying because my lips are moving."   Which meant to me that I may want to shut up because I really didn't have anything anybody needed until I did the work to clean my side of the street.  Then, maybe, I might have something to share that will help them but until then...let it begin with me. 


I prayed for help and experienced Divine Intervention.  When GOD steps in there is no question it is GOD because the Solution is so off the scale, something I never even thought of in my best thinking...wow.  Amazing.  

The Towing

The memory about the boat therapy experience came to the front of my mind because Sho and Mario went to the coast to fish the other day.  They towed Mario's boat.  Sho's been working so hard throughout the weeks, including Saturdays and Sundays.  I admonished him, "Oh.  It's not enough to be "The Man In The Can", now you're turning into a workoholic.  It's important for mental health to take a break".  Jeesh.  There I go, giving advice, as if asked.  Well, he did go fishing and said they were about 5 miles offshore when the steering went out.  So he used a long net somehow to tie the separate ends to be able to steer the boat.  An old man and woman were fishing nearby and generously offered to tow them to land. Sho said he offered to pay for their gas and time but they declined.  "One day, if we ever need it, hopefully somebody will helps us, too.", they said.

Stitch, Elvis's brother

Last night one of my daughters called and asked for help to come get Stitch, her dog, out of the way because the van quit working while she was driving.  She realized it felt funny so she just barely managed to steer it into an open slot of a turning lane which, by the way, turns into nothing.  I have no idea why that lane is even there!  Except maybe to give her a place to steer the van out of everybody's way.  Awesome.

I arrived and she walked Stitch across the street over to me.  Her cellphone barely had enough energy to call AAA, my oldest son and me so I lent her mine.  All of a sudden my cellphone went dead.  Whereas a mere moment ago it was fine.   Hmmm.  That felt weird.  She said she'd already called AAA, a towing company, and they said it would be 2 1/2 hours before anyone could come tow the van because somehow their computer system crashed and they were backlogged while trying to log-in information by hand.  Hmmmm. My son arrived and checked the van but it wouldn't stay on.  He said might be a sensor because it seemed fine:  the belts, oil, water, gas, etc.  Hmmmmm.  I felt weirded, as best I can describe, so I went into prayer, I turned it all over, everything.  I felt peaceful, sedate, comfortable.  As if all was well and taken cared of.  Just like that.  I looked at my phone, fiddled a bit, it turned on, asked for my unlock code and worked fine.  I called my neighbor, Debbie, who owns a towing company.  She said ok, she'd have her driver come pickup the van.  Fifteen minutes later, Debbie calls back and said strangely she can't locate her driver.  Is it ok if she calls ATX, another towing company?  No problem.  Hmmmmmm.  I prayed.  Turned it all over.  Debbie calls again.  She's struggling, too, but finally gets Harper's to tow the van.  My son leaves and a police officer came to help.  Finally Harper's arrived, towed the van.  The driver thought it might be the alternator so he hooked up his battery charger...the van started and it stayed on.  Jeesh.  So it's not the alternator because it wouldn't stay on by itself...on and on.  I turned this all over and over to that Power Greater than me.  I kept a positive, helpful attitude.  Not cheerful, mind you...kind, patient and did what I could to help without becoming The Solution  to my daughter's problems. Thanks to my Higher Power that I choose to call GOD, I can say it all ended just fine and for this I'm truly grateful.  

Dear GOD, may I be of service to YOU and YOUR children by doing YOUR Will always so that I can show by example how You work in my life to make it somehow work out just the way it should be according to YOUR Will, not mine.  As YOU wish..sincerely, Carol xoxox  (hugs & kisses)    

Boat Therapy

Well, this is one I'd rather keep to myself so instead I'll go ahead and put it out there.

I'd been having a particularly hard time but I didn't even notice it.  My control issues were exacerbated, I was dominance driven and I felt like I was fine just the way I was.  The "I got it all together" was a thin veneer because just beneath the surface writhed a boiling mass of fear, fear, fear.  Of what?  Who knows?  Take a pick...people, places, things, etc.  Whatever caught my attention.  That's where I'd fixate and scare myself.

Anyway, Sho invited me to go fishing where we'd meet up with Mike, his wife and son at Port Lavaca.  Mike had a boat and we'd go fishing in the bay.  Sho said this would be good for me.

We met at the bay and they backed up the boat down into the water, chugged it over to the side of the dock and up to this point I'd been fine.  I saw Michael, Mike's son, get on the boat so I gingerly mimicked his steps and got in.  It rocked a little but that wasn't too bad.  I sat on my spot and promised myself not to move...ever.  With everyone on-board we chugged out onto the waters of the bay.

First of all, let's be clear.  I'm a landlubber and land lover.  Second, the only times I've ever been on a boat were when Mr. Baker, our houseparent at WTCH, used to take us water skiing at a reservoir which was like a lake. So fast-forward, years later, here I am on a little tin boat (a 16 footer) which seemed to shrink even more when surrounded by the water of the bay.  At this time I noticed some clouds far off in the distance, way, way, far away and I pointed them out to Sho and he shrugged, not a problem.  Okay.  Last thing I wanted was to be caught in a storm.  Jeesh.

We cast our reels and after a bit I caught a fish.  I tugged the line hard to yank the fish in.  Sho yelled, "Watch out!  You never know what's at the end of the line!"  Sure enough.  It was a stingray.  Jeesh.  I caught 3 of those and each one was big and bigger and biggest. At one point the boat got stuck where there were rocks and the depth of the water wasn't enough for the boat so Mike and Sho had to get out and rock it free.  I felt relieved they didn't even bother to ask me to get my big butt out because that wasn't happening.  I wasn't moving.  I thought they were heroic to put their lives at such risk for us.  All that water of the bay was intimidating.   Around 1pm the line of clouds had bubbled up and blew closer.  My fear and nervousness did, too.  Maybe we need to go to shore  Nah.  "We're fine", they assured me.

The lap, lap, lap of the water against the boat became slap, slap, slap.  The gentle cool sea breeze was no more for it was replaced by a chilly,.gusty, ruthlessly moist wind that promised rain.  Let's go, let's go.  As I looked back I saw Mike lift a can of beer to his lips and that really tripped me out!  Oh my gosh.  He was drinking while driving a boat and I was on that boat!  Talk about fear. And we were buffeted by the storm.  As the water swelled the squeal of the motor's propellers changed tone when the boat lifted up high.  My nails clawed the side of the boat bench and I whispered, "Be still." to the water but it didn't work.  I confirmed I had zero influence.  I worked Steps 1, 2 and 3 and that helped me not panic or do something really stupid which is always a possibility.  By the time we got to land and I weeble-wobbled off that boat I had to go to the restroom.  I b-a-r-e-l-y made it before having to clean a big mess off myself.  

I wanted to kiss the land.  I was so grateful to live and make it back!  I was cured for awhile of fear, controlling, dominating and acting as if I am responsible for everything and everybody else's problems.  I just felt happy to be alive and free.   Whenever Sho notices I'm stressed out he says, "Maybe it's time for boat therapy" and we laugh.  Definitely worked!  CYA...Change Your Attitude  Now I don't need to get on a boat...I know what to do to change my mind and the direction it's headed in...pray, meditate, remember to breathe, work the Steps, pick up the phone to call my sponsor or a program friend, journal, read the literature, etc.  Just do it.

The Big Picture

One more time I'm deeply humbled by the magnitude of it all.  I watched NOVA's The Fabric of the Universe "What is space?" and also "The Illusion of Time" productions which played on PBS last night.  They might be showing at http://www.pbs.org/, too. Anyway, I listened to these highly evolved, brilliant, gifted scientists talk about quantum physics, black holes, space travel, Einstein's theories, the Big Bang, the shrinking or stretching of time and space, slowing down or accelerating, antimatter, dark matter, on and on.  Fascinating. Absolutely riveting. What a conversation!  It's like I tuned-in to hear them say their point of view, perspective of the Big Picture of Life.


This morning I read Jenni's short story and I laughed with delight how she describes a nursing mother's point of view of the Big Picture of her Life.  http://sharkreef.org/fiction/this-thing-she-is-now/  How poignantly true.

As I pick and choose what perspectives to listen to I am actively engaged in creating my life.  I can color my world bleak, pensive, tense, stressed, despairing, no hope, why care?  Or I can color it bright, animated, warm, loving, giving and receiving support, hope, relaxed, pleasurable, enjoying life.  Which do I choose?  The power lies in the present moment.  Sometimes I feel so buffeted by Life's myriad possibilities that I use a tactile exercise to get grounded.  When I wiggle my toes, scrunch them, f-e-e-l the surface they are on...the minute I feel this...I'm in the here and now.  That's where I need to be...where GOD is.

Working the Steps take me right there.  X marks the spot.  "The inspired person hits the target...without taking aim."

A Poster Person for the 12 Steps

There is no one person who can represent the widely diverse population engaged in the dynamic flux of working the Steps and achieving sobriety or not.  It's also very hard to predict who will make it and who won't.  The very one who appears most likely to succeed sometimes just can't do it, no matter what.  The one you think doesn't have a remote chance, does it!

People say a person has to want sobriety, it can't be mandated.  This isn't true.  I've met many a recovered person who was ordered by a court of law to go to treatment or go to prison.  Fast forward years later, they kept going to meetings and staying sober long after fulfilling the court's mandates.

The #1 common factor of everyone who relapses:  THEY STOPPED GOING TO MEETINGS.

Sobriety does not appear to rely on beauty, intelligence, power, background, education, money, social status, what a person has or has-not.  Once I met a homeless individual who was illiterate, stuttered, of short-stature and ooogly.  He'd been abused as a child and had long term mental challenges resulting from being hit on his head so many times.  So not only did he live with mental illness he also was a chronic alcoholic and couldn't stop drinking.  He kept relapsing every few days until finally he was told he had to go to treatment.  I didn't believe it was possible for someone as messed-up as him to be able to get sober.   Anyway, he went.  28 days later he completed treatment.  I didn't recognize him. Now he had excellent eye contact, a spring in his step, a ready smile and a conversation.  He ironed his clothes before putting them on.  His vocabulary changed to where he didn't cuss as much and when an inappropriate word slipped out he was quick to apologize.  While at the treatment facility he met a sponsor who had a few more days of sobriety.  His sponsor was available day or night and came to pick him up to go to meetings.  Although he still couldn't read the Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous", he listened carefully while others read.  This made all the difference in the world.  He looked like a person on a mission, like he had purpose.  A changed man.

He didn't stay sober.  He relapsed and went back out into the streets but there will forever be a memory imprinted he had sobriety for a while and maybe one day he can make it back in out of the cold hell of addiction. Or maybe not. I've heard it said, "I know I got one more drunk in me but I don't know if I have one more sobering up."

 If I ever met a person who had very good reasons and excuses for not being able to get sober it was him.  He gave me a great gift of seeing with my own eyes the remarkable, miraculous transformation possible even for someone with not just one but multiple major challenges.  He also taught me I really don't know who will or will not achieve sobriety so it's important to keep an open mind and to keep my hand stretched out, ready to help because, you never know, it might save a life...my own.  That's what Bill W. learned.  He kept failing to sober up drunks but he did succeed in staying sober himself by enlarging "his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others..." page 15, BB "Alcoholics Anonymous".  It saved the day.


I am responsible.  When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand (of the 12 Steps Fellowships I belong to) always to be there.  And for that: I am responsible. 

From Nowhere to Somewhere

For the first time, Indonesia has viewed my blog!  Saudia Arbia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Malaysia, Russia and the United States are also on the list of those who visit.  How thrilling to know anyone reads it at all.  Pretty amazing.  Thank you for showing interest.

One of my Alanon sponsees encourages me to keep writing, another one not only likes my blog she started her own.  A couple of AA buddies also give positive feedback.  There is something very revealing in writing a blog.  For one thing it is on the World Wide Web.  Jeesh.  Will it be criticized?  Probably.  So what?  Who cares?  In the Great Cosmos, I am a little, bitty, wee blink of an existence and what I think, feel, believe and do, for the most part, really doesn't amount to anything.  It's like "poof".

But...the Great "But" is...in my mind, I'm all I got.  This is it.  I am here.  Now what do I do?

The answer for me is to work the 12 Steps, over and over.  Why?  Because they work.  No matter what obstacles, barriers, detours that Life presents if I just remember to do the work, everything is not only "ok"...I'm happy, joyous and free.  Well, that's the goal, the ideal.  There are times I'm there, right there where I want to be.  But I don't stay there.

The truth is Life keeps happening, changing, and a lot of times faster than I can keep up.  I'm not only s-l-o-w.  I resist.  I don't wanna.  Even if I'm unhappy I'd rather stay inert, fixed in the "comfort" of the misery I know instead of the discomfort of The Unknown.  The Learning Curve stretches out too far ahead and I can't see how long it'll take to "get there".  To this new place of understanding and possibility.  Will I make it to the other side or fail dismally?  Another statistic.  So then I think of myself as a has-been who never-was.  I forget.  This is the place of Nowhere.  The Beatles wrote an fantastic song, "Nowhere Man" that kind of describes this.

The Steps lead to Somewhere that I am Somebody and so are you.  Where we bask in the glory of our Higher Power who loves us all unconditionally. My dog, Elvis, is a great teacher of love and acceptance because if a mere dog can love me so much, how much more so does my Creator love me?  "Dog" spelled backwards is "GOD".   I'm humbled and awed.  Thank You, God, for it all...  

Weathering the Stormy Weather

You know, sometimes Life has a way of just reaching out across space and punk-slapping me.  Wake up.

After dropping Sho off yesterday and then blogging, I fed the dogs and fish, did a bit of housework,etc. and before long it was time to get to the 3pm Women's AA meeting.   I arrived a little late but did participate.  The topic was acceptance on page 417 of the big book, "ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS".  Then I drove to Hancock's Fabric Store on South Lamar and bought a couple of things.  I love that store.  It's like a candy store full of delight except it's not fattening.  Anyway I drove back to the clubhouse and attended the 5:30pm Alanon meeting.  The topic was the 11th Step...kewl.  I waited for someone to show up at the 7pm Spanish Alanon meeting but no one did except one of the women from the earlier meeting only because a heavy rain had started pouring down.  I showed her the weather radar on my phone.  The line of rain would pass and then might be a good time to leave.  By 7:30pm still no one arrived for the meeting and I decided to go home.  The rain had slowed down.

Wow.  I drove into a hell-anxious storm.  The choices I made as to side roads, bridges, and whatever I traveled seemed gorged and out of control.  Tires plumed the water high up spewing like fountain feather fans off the roadway.  All terrain vehicles disdainfully passed my slow moving car as they whisked speedily by and showered the windshield with water.  The wipers worked as hard and fast as possible to clear my vision but to no avail.  The sheets of rain kept whipping and ever so briefly I saw the middle stripe on the road or a curb or a dim outline of the street to give just enough glimpse of the edge to stay on the road. I felt frightened as I gripped the steering wheel, hyper vigilant to stay safe in this deluge.  I kept thinking, "Surely it's almost done!" and still...I kept on driving.  At one point I felt afraid to cross a bridge because the rain was so fierce I couldn't see the road, the rails, nothing.  So I stopped.  A taxi drove around me and proceeded to cross so I followed it.  Further along the road I just couldn't take it anymore.  I pulled into the driveway of a country church and watched as a vehicle once in a while passed.  I looked at the weather radar on my phone and apparently I was smack dab in the middle of that line of storm.  It was slow moving and I'd been driving right in its pathway.  What are the chances of that happening?  I waited a while until the sheets of rain turned into drops then I got back on the road.  The visibility was still poor but a bit better than before.  By this time lightening streaked and forked violently.  The crashing thunder shortly followed and I knew I was still in the storm but I finally made it home.  It was about 8:30pm.  I can usually be home in 15 to 20 minutes depending on the traffic.  Jeesh.  I felt grateful to be alive.

I don't believe in accidents.  I believe everything happens for a reason.  An opportunity to learn something.  Guess what I learned from this experience? Acceptance, prayer and meditation might be some good things to practice instead of driving right into the long line of a Texas-sized thunderstorm.  Jeesh.  It's one thing to know the information...it's quite another to put it into action.

Trying-out the 4 Agreements

Well, Sho's transmission went out so I gave him a ride this morning.  I took Elvis and Stitch for the ride and he yelled at them a couple of times because they barked loudly at a bicyclist, then at some joggers.  I kept my mouth shut, after all, there really wasn't anything I wanted to say that was helpful ...I worked the 1st agreement:  Keep my word impeccable.  We stopped at a Mexican restaurant and he went in to buy some tacos.  I imagined all kinds of stuff while waiting for him. He was probably this and probably that, etc.  Flirting with someone, doesn't really want to be with me, etc.  Apparently I do this automatically, quite effortlessly constructing a whole other reality for him...without even asking.  So I practiced the 3rd agreement:  don't make assumptions, if I really want to know...just ask.  Irregardless what he wants or doesn't want I can practice the 2nd agreement:  don't take it personally...my fledgling flight using Agreements 1, 2 and 3...yeah! I'm re-reading "The Four Agreements".  I'm pretty slow but eventually I'll succeed at integrating this format, using these tools for recovery.  I'm a 12 Stepper and I am willing to keep an open mind to listen to what others have to offer...more will be revealed...

Life's Palettes and Color Me Blue

When I was a little girl we got our first console TV.  We were so excited.  It was a black and white TV which means the picture had no color but we didn't care.  It was big, encased in wood and had center spot in the living room.  We huddled together in front of the TV and were admonished, "move back, don't sit too close you'll go blind!  It has radiation that's bad for you" and we looked at each other, shrugged and when not supervised, we scooted closer.  When dad was home he loved to watch the Dallas Cowboys football game.  He was treated as if he was a British Royal.  He had the best seat in the house and he ruled...as long as he was in good favor with my mom all was well in the kingdom.  Otherwise there was mayhem.  Screaming, cursing, hysterical aggressive verbal threats, hate spewed from my mom's megaphone mouth and it was scary to behold because she was only 4'11" and probably weighed about 85 lbs. wet while he was over 6' tall and more than 250 lbs.  It was always questionable who was going to kill or be killed.  He was like a gentle, predictable, singing giant and she more like a spit-fire unstable, overwhelmed, explosive TNT.  He'd try to calm her but she'd have nothing to do with it so he'd leave...and then her venom spewed our way...jeesh.

Having a TV caused problems because it showed things I never realized existed.  It fed my imagination.  I had always suspected other people in the hood were like my family. We acted one way at home and another one in public for the most part.  This is how I interpreted family behavior.  Well, let me tell you, TV flipped my worldview!  "Leave it to Beaver", "The Flintstones", "Lassie", etc. catapulted my perspective in a big way.  Books had already ignited my imagination as I climbed the harsh, snowbound Alps to hear the yodeling in Heidi's world, or wandered in the green meadows to meet Winnie the Pooh with his honeypot, Piglet, Eeyore or Tigger, and ran around with Dick, Jane, Sally and Spot.  I loved reading "The Little Bear" which filled my heart with such warm, fuzzy feelings of love and safety as Mama Bear cared for and protected Little Bear.  There was something about the smells from the pages of the books and the tactile power of flipping a page whenever I was ready to go forward or go back to re-read whatever I wanted, such power at my fingertips.  I blossomed when I read.  TV sealed the deal.  ANYTHING and ANYBODY else was better than what I lived and I longed to be "them" instead of me.

I'm not sure exactly when my world became black and white with its grey tones to give variety but I do know when it became colorful again.  In vivid living color.   My life's palettes changed when I stopped "using" people, places and things.  Instead I started using a few simple guidelines called the 12 Steps.  My emotional palette used to only have sad, scared and mad.  My mental palette fear, anxiety and despair.  Now I experience a full range of thoughts and emotions, a rainbow sparkling of potentialities available to pick from.  It doesn't mean I never have negative thoughts or feelings...it means I don't have to stay in black or white, right or wrong, good or bad, either or...there is so much more.  Today I get to choose.  That's what is different..today I get to color me blue or any other color I want.  It's my choice and my concept of  a Higher Power I choose to call "GOD" (aka  The Juice of The Universe) is the Source of Power which sustains my stamina to continue this freedom to choose one day at a time.  When I choose to do my Higher Power's Will paradoxically I am free from the Bondage of Self, my selfish driven, ego-centric, shrunken worldview of me, me, me.  Instead the world expands and the question becomes, "Who's large and in charge?"  Then I relax, enjoy and participate in the rainbow of freedom and love so freely given in the Sunlight of the Spirit.

Anyway, I wrote this song a long time ago in an attempt to musically describe my efforts to overcome a spiritual malady which so many suffer with.  I hope you can sit still long enough to hear what I wanted to say...Color Me Blue...the amazing talented guitarist is Marty Christian  He is a true gift from the Universe and I'm glad I said "yes" to his kind, supportive, empowering friendship.  His website is at http://www.martychristian.com where you can meet him and listen to his music.  Tell Marty I sent ya!  He has no idea I even have a blog...jeesh, I'm slow getting around to these things.

Starquakes, earthquakes and other fears

I can relate to Anita who is on the youtube video shared on this blog yesterday.  I was so afraid of so many things, even of my own shadow.  I feared fear.  I'm so typical it's ridiculous.  Anyway, I lived with obsessing that I didn't want to fear but that's how I felt inside for the most part.  If nothing was happening in my daily world that gave me anxiety, worry or fear there was something wrong so I looked for more to worry, fear, obsess about.  I looked for material to do this with.  For instance one morning I read in fascinated horror at Yahoo.com that scientists speculated a star had a starquake  far away on some distant galaxy may have triggered the deadly December tsunami which killed a great many people.  I reeled with the realization of how far external events which none of us even knew about could have such devastating effects on the earth we inhabit.   I felt devastated by how powerless I am over not only that but a long list of other stuff I just have no power over.  I weebled-wobbled, reeled with the emotional terror of it all.  I went to an Alanon meeting that evening and shared the humongous, out of control enormity of the starquake and elaborated on how I  seem to fixate on such things.  By the time I was through talking we were all laughing.  What a relief!

When I arrived at the meeting the starquake was my reality.  By the end of the meeting I was no longer in the outer spaces of my creative, negative, speculating thoughts.  Instead I was grounded in the here and now where I am at my most powerful when connected and guided by my Higher Power.  As I  Let Go and Let GOD, I relax and wholeheartedly trust GOD has it all covered.  My experience is the quality of life improves so much when I'm lovingly living my present moments instead of wastefully squandering them so carelessly wrapped in the "past"-urizing or "future"-izing of my best "thinking".  Now if only I can remember to stay in the now and stop hiding out in the past or future...practice, practice, practice.  Thank GOD it's about progress, not about perfection..  .

Two litle birds

About a week ago, as I walked out the front door a bird swooped down by me and then another bird did the same.  I felt perplexed by their behavior but then remembered earlier in the spring these birds had done the same thing when one of their baby birds had fallen out of their nest and my stepson had picked it up, returned it to the nest and it did fine.  This time I looked on the ground and saw where two little baby birds lay, one on its side with its eyes open and the other on its back with its eyes closed.   I ran inside the house, put a glove on and picked up the birds.  I gently blew air at them as I tried to get a response but none came.  They were dead.  They had been down in the direct sun too long.  I grieved the loss of those baby birds that didn't make it and their parents not understanding. I felt such a sadness well up.

Day before yesterday I was in a hurry to get to a meeting but as I backed-out of the driveway I saw a nest and close by there was a fat little baby bird on the gravel.  I was so tempted to leave it so not to be late but I just couldn't do it.  I parked the car, went inside to get a glove, then checked the baby bird.  It had a couple of fire ants on it but otherwise seemed fine.  I picked up the nest and fastened it to a tree, tucked the birdie into the nest and wished it good luck.  Then sped off to work.

Later that evening when I returned home it was late and the weather was stormy.  I feared for the little bird but turned it over and over to my Higher Power.  The next day I checked and there was the outline of its little body defined by a massive amount of fire ants and only hoped its death had been swift.  The empty nest was still attached to the tree.  I grieved the baby bird's death and felt powerless.  I went to work and when I saw Sho last night told him about the baby bird and its death.  He listened and agreed it was very sad.  I grieved and felt the loss.  I console myself with the loving thought these baby birds are probably in bird heaven flying around happy and free.  It's my fantasy. 

Here is a woman who talks about her near death experience and I feel reassured.

Co-signing the B.S..

There really are people who can "love to death"!  Jeesh.  The untreated co-dependents living in denial they have a serious illness themselves.  Some are very smooth operators who know just what to say, how to look, and how to act in each social setting, adept in presenting sanity at all times, their internal :"Little Professors" working overtime to instruct everybody else of what they need to be doing to succeed in life.  Busy, busy, busy in the cover-up .  Co-dependents co-sign the bull-crap of addiction because they make it easier and easier for the alcoholic/addict to use. "Oh, it's not that bad", "He'll outgrow it", "It's just a phase she's going through", "he'll stop one day when he's ready", "she feels so bad because...", ""I just can't say no", "I hate to see him go through so much pain", "I give it to her so she'll shut up and leave me alone", "Begs and pleads until I feel so sorry for him that I give in", "Screams and threatens to hurt me or herself which scares me so I give in", "It's only $5, I can afford it.", "Poor thing, it must be terrible", "Here, take this ___ to make you feel better", on and on.  I assure you for every good little alcoholic/addict in the grip of addiction there is a good little co-dependent nearby ready "to make things better".  I know of these things because I've done them.  I've been guilty of them all and I learned to do these very same things from watching others do them.

This is perfectly understandable since I come from an extensive family system riddled with all kinds of substance abuse, mental illnesses and large doses of denial.  Looking at my family members it is very easy to see the ravages these illnesses take on us all in the long run BUT it's harder to see when it's too close.  Like it's harder to see the forest if I'm standing too close to a tree.

I grew up poor as a little girl and did without.  This was not uncommon where I lived in the barrio and there were many gifts of cast-off clothes, shoes, a cup of sugar to make the oatmeal taste better, etc.  I remember living in Montopolis and there was a girl who was "rich" in that she had a tab at the local store where she could get whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted!  I felt astonished that such a possibility could even exist!  She was the girl with the candy and had special status in the hood.  So we did a lot of people-pleasing, backstabbing, character assassination and whatever we could to jockey for the #1Friend position.   I didn't last long in the competition...too slow and it didn't really feel good when I won at the cost of others.  So I removed myself from the fray and did without. Awwww...

Anyway, what this memory brings to mind is how the people with the candy in the legal adult world are medical persons who have access to prescription drugs.  Why do drugs work?  Because they change the way we think and feel...mood and mind-altering drugs.  That is the nature of the pill beast.  However, they ALL have side effects, some short and some lifelong.

What excites me is how it is possible to change how I think, feel and act by working my program!   I can go to a meeting when I feel crappy then walk out feeling a changed person!  Free!  Jeesh. The only side effect is I get to live free from the bondage of addiction.  If only I could bottle and sell that.  I'd be a frigging millionairess!  

The 3 A's: Awareness, Acceptance, Action

I am a 12 Stepper.  The Steps helped me in ways too numerous to count.  One is being able to free me from the prison bars I  keep putting myself in, the Bondage of Self.

Sometimes the light streams through the window in such a way I can see hundreds and hundreds of small, fairy-like floating, flying dust bunny lints and other stuff.  Only in the light beams do they appear.  They disappear in the areas where the light doesn't shine.  To me, denial is like where the light doesn't shine.   I just can't see the bars of the prison cell.  I just can't see it.  Awareness helps shift the light to cast its beams on the cell bars and they appear shimmering, maybe yes and maybe no of their reality.  They are real as soon as I accept the truth that I am in bondage.  I am still in the cell until I take action...I walk the 12 Steps that take me from a place of nowhere to a place of Somewhere...into the Realm of the Sunlight of the Spirit.  When I reside in this Realm who I am shifts into a Higher Consciousness operating in a small huge arena of power, light and love.  This is The Great Reality.


The woodcutter was cutting wood.
One day the woodcutter was enlightened.
Then, the woodcutter was cutting wood. 


If, the woodcutter became enlightened and he still cut wood then what was the point?  Why didn't he become rich, beautiful, famous, etc.?  Why bother?  Because it's an inside job.  Victor Frankel, a Jewish psychiatrist, was in a concentration camp and survived the Holocaust.  He was on the "Death Patrol", the Jews who had to collect jewelry, gold teeth, and other things of value off the dead Jews.  He noticed there was a difference between those who survived and those who didn't.  He realized there was an inner core, a place the Nazi had no access or dominion...his inner space where he was free.  No matter what the outside, no matter the stimuli, he was free to choose how he would feel, be or not.  True power, light and love that no one can steal nor will it rust, age or fade...wow.  I want that freedom.  

Deliverance vs Self-Will

When I quit drinking (sobriety date 1-17-93) I was delivered.  I went to meetings, read the literature, prayed the Serenity Prayer day and night, detoxed, called my sponsor, wrote in my journal, and worked the 12 Steps...all this done very imperfectly but done nevertheless.  In other words, I was willing to do whatever I needed to do to stop drinking.  I will say I relied heavily on my Higher Power to help me even though my relationship history with GOD was shaky GOD was all I had that I could depend on.  I sure as heck couldn't depend on me!  And there was no one else on this Earth that could do for me what my Higher Power could do for me.  As a result, I was delivered from the compulsion and obsession to drink.  Poof.  Gone.  As if I'd never had it.  A memory so faint it is hard to believe it ever had so much power to take me down like it did.  Charity, my sponsor, said as long as I remember my last drink I'll be fine.  What this means to me is as long as I remember how far down King Alcohol took me, the pain, the despair, the terror and isolation...and what that bottom felt like...hurt so bad...royal ass-whipping...I never want to feel that again...dear GOD help me from ever going there again...I'll be fine as long as I remember.

When I quit smoking (11-17-93) I was not delivered.  I crawled away from that addiction. By the end of my 25 illustrious years of smoking I had graduated to smoking 3 packs of Marlboro reds a day.  I coughed a lot,  had a lot of phlegm, allergies, and was breathless.  My hair, breath and body always smelled like an ashtray. Most of my clothes and furniture had cigarette burns.  Plus the cost was going up, up, up!  Jeesh.  By then I was spending about $160.00 a month!  To add insult to injury I saw a poster titled something like---"MEET 5 OF AMERICA'S BIGGEST DRUG PUSHERS".  There were 5 men in pin-striped suits, their pink cheeks aglow with heath, vitality and wealth, their rings and Rolex watches down to their hand-tooled Italian leather sparkling shoes.  Wow...all that I wasn't and didn't have.  On the bottom of the poster..."These are the owners of America's largest tobacco companies".  What!? I'm kind of slow but the dots finally connected and it became clear every time I spent my money on cigarettes I was paying these guys to have their quality of life and diminishing mine. I was taking from my children's mouths to feed theirs. So I smoked my last cigarette at 10 pm, Thursday, November 17, 1993.   I told myself no matter what happened I would not smoke.  I thought I might die, have seizures, go crazy, grow fat...no matter what, I would not smoke.  For 4 weeks I felt angry, outraged, murderous, hostile, hair-triggered nuts...after that I had about 5 weeks where I mourned, grieved, cried, felt sorry for myself, suicidal, and just wanted to die.  One thought seemed very persistent, "I might as well smoke.  What's the point in stopping?  No body cares."  I had a strong adverse reaction to quitting.  I used what Charity taught me regarding the last one...except it's the last cigarette and what it took to crawl away from that addiction...I NEVER want to go through that again.  GOD help me.

And do you know that once in a great while, if I'm standing downwind to a drink of alcohol or a cigarette, a sneaking little thought can flit and flicker ever so gently whisper in a kind, benevolent way, "What's one drink or a smoke?  It's not going to kill me."  Yep.  19 years later...hilarious.  The saying is "While I'm in a meeting, my disease is doing pushups outside on the parking lot."  I believe it.