Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Consequences...

All of my sponsees eventually get very tired of the expression of my fundamental expression of life: "...consequences are a bitch..."

Some of my sponsees hear that as many as 4-5 times when they call on a day where they are really trying to sell their drama.  The ones that have been with me for a while usually will beat me to the punch line when they feel one coming on.  I really don't say it to be cruel or to hurt someone's feelings or to do anything other than to seek the acknowledgment that much of what happens that I don't like in my life happens as a consequence of reactions to my beliefs and actions.  Just that.

Except, I forget.

This morning, a former sponsee and good friend of mine for 15+ years was having tea with me and he talked about "...the time he blew up his brain on acid..."  His life, but, more importantly, his brain was never the same after that fateful time when he was 17.  It was just one of those conversations you have around this fellowship - as matter of fact as discussing the weather, he discussed when his brain just ceased to function the way it did before that time of seeking "more."

We postulated on what we know and what we don't know about the experiences of our lives today.  He's 30+ years past that time and, although he's got a case of diagnosed mental illness, the best psychiatrist he could get to declared that the problems he suffers from today has nothing to do with his use and abuse of 30+ years ago.  I wonder.  How could they possibly not be related?  It just makes no sense to me when you jack around with neurons and synapses and neuro-function like that, how can it not at the very least scar the brain and nerves?  Or give one a serious trauma to the limbic brain.

Then, I thought about all the folks I know who have seriously done in brain cells with a vengeance - or, are seemingly beyond hope and still at it - and again, I wonder.

For people with a spiritual malady like mine, we just like to presume there will never be a piper to pay.  We get a lot of relief in our recovery, but I wonder to this day why it is that it seems my emotions or my nerves or just my sense of the world feels out of whack.

Consequences, are, in fact...

OTOH, God's grace is a pretty good deal too...

5 comments:

Pammie said...

I've tried to use a credit card with the piper before and it does not work. ;)

Mary Christine said...

I'll go with God's grace. I am still waiting to pay for many, many, many things I did back in the day.

Anonymous said...

Some consequences are worse than others and some of us are more fortunate than others. We've just got to build on the past and do the best we can with what we have. We get better, but we never get well!

Syd said...

That is one reason that I never drank seriously or did heavy drugs--I needed all my brain cells and realized that in college. I am one of the fortunate ones I guess.

Scott M. Frey said...

I love God's Grace...

I remember learing in AA that most of my trouble are of my own making. Man, I was mad about that lol. Consequences are indeed a big bummer!