Sanctimonious...

I'm fairly new to this blogging thing. (I've decided I'm going to stop saying that after 90 days - while I'm years behind some who are publishing daily articles online, I've eventually got to stop using that as an excuse...) Sometimes, while I'm reading others' blogs, during a meditation time, in the middle of talking with my sponsor or a sponsee, or other random times during the day - a word just pops into my head.

That's really all I can say happened to select the title for this article: sanctimonious. No, I'm not talking about you (sing it Carly - "...you're so vain...!!!"). This one is about me. Being arrogant or sanctimonious (I looked it up - it's not a compliment) is something I've been accused of and have in fact been most of my life.

This isn't "true confession time" or anything like that - it's just a word that came up and we're going with it.

Over 20 years ago, an incident back in my 1st year of college came up in a 4th step that I wrote. The incident was one of those in my past that I wish I could obliterate from my memory. I was stone cold sober at that time (I was most of that year, in fact) - that makes it just that much worse. I was a theater major that semester (I was a pre-law major the next semester and an engineer the semester after that...). I was working on the stage on a production of Peter Pan and a girl (Andrea?), the most stone-cold fox in the department, walked up to me and just said "...Ed, you are just one big ego trip..." and turned away and walked off.

I was clueless what to do with that but was mortified so I took it on as a badge of honor and repeated that scene to everyone on the set - I still remember the confused looks and reactions that people gave me - sort of like "...you poor, pathetic, freak...". Frankly, to this day I still don't know exactly what she meant or why she was telling me that.

Yet, that incident froze in one vision the whole mess of my life and the true depth of the spiritual malady I'm recovering from to this day:

1. I was desperately confused and afraid
2. to say that I was socially inept is a huge understatement
3. because of this fear (for my very existence), I desperately needed your approval
4. the only 2 roles I could generally play to my advantage were victim and a sort of pseudo-humble
   
5. mix the previous together, you can probably get a vision of me acting out, showing off, ducking responsibility, quitting

Gawd I still wish I could get past the memory of that scene.

Yet, as the promise is in our Big Book, I do "... not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it..." because, as I relate to some of the folks I sponsor, I can relate to the nature and depth of their problems. The ugly scene in my head still seems to be useful to others.

Today, I hope I can grow past that vision of the desperate egotist I know I am. I pray God it's possible...