Doing right...

I've read Mary's and Pam's articles today on the 12th step and written another article on the 9th step. Caused me to think more than was good for me...

I love all our program. All of it.

I personally think that the 9th step in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is our most "spiritual" step.

Sounds sort of funny since the whole program is spiritual and step nine is, by most, either the most dreaded or the one sort of ignored in our recovery process.

For me, it was the step that afforded me the freedom to walk down the street without fear or dread. It gave me the freedom to look someone, anyone, in the eye and be at peace and ease.

It offered me the skills and the willingness to become a man among men - a station in life that I'd never even aspired to since I was absolutely sure I could never measure up to that lofty goal.

It's what truly gave me something of value that I could share with the newcomer today...

No, I don't believe that you don't have to complete your 9th step to start doing the 12th step (if you have a day's sobriety, you have some experience to share with some of the folks still struggling in some of my meetings).

On the other hand, if you've not experienced the joy of crossing the last name off your 8th step list having completed all your direct amends, then you're missing something that I would wish for you while you're on this planet...

...if, you're an alcoholic like me...

Spent

I love my mom. I love my son.

My mother lives in a local senior housing apartment. She is happier now than I've ever known her to be at any other time of her life. As she will point out to you, if you visit with her long enough, her biggest disappointment in life is that her son doesn't visit with her often enough or stay long enough when he visits.

I try to get over there at least once a week and we spend a few hours having lunch and doing errands she accumulates through the week. I know she loves me and means well but, for those of you that have mothers, you know that there are "buttons" that are painful and, well, it can be tedious. I know that she might outlive us all but what I'm way clear about at this point in our lives is that I need to enjoy her the best I can and all that I can for today.

God has repaired our lives together in a mystical way so that I can be truly useful to her today. When making amends to her some years ago, she allowed that she just wanted me "to be happy" - so, I try to show up, once a week ,and be happy.

Friday, she will turn 88. So today we went to a small local mountain town and ate Indian food that she had a taste for and then did a short drive in the mountains.

Perfect.

My son lives in downtown Denver. We get together every week for dinner together. It's just about 2 hours of time together but since he's an hour away, it involves a good part of a Wednesday evening. I do this, in part, because of amends owed to him. As the tornado that was raging through his life up until he was about 13 years old, it's a small price I've paid for the past ~10 years.

When anyone asks my about my son, I've learned to answer "he's fine" and change the subject. If someone I don't know persists, I ask them what they know about mental illness. After that, the trajectory of the conversation will go one way or another.

So, we get together. He rants about this, that and the other thing. Threatens, yells, blusters, threatens some more...

We have dinner, an ice cream cone and then I drop him off at his apartment.

I tell him I love him and that I'm proud of him. He says the same to me.

Perfect.

U.N.C.L.E.

Something on Scott W.'s blog from several months ago sent me back to a time in my life that I may not have thought about since my 2nd or 3rd time doing a 4th step - over 20 years ago...

When I was a kid in Junior High school (now THAT was over 45 years ago), I'd been watching Man from U.N.C.L.E. for a number of years and was just so incredibly taken by the coolness of the characters and the whole way they could be anonymous heroes in the world that I created a whole fantasy world wherein (of course) I was a (the?) key agent in a secret, powerful, international organization.

While the whole of my sleepy, small town in Colorado went about it's business, I would be picked up by silent jets in the middle of the night to go off to lead this exciting life of dangerous missions and important espionage. It was a great fantasy that crossed over into real life when I told my best friend some things about my "true" identity. I can almost still see the unbelief in his face as I tried to convince him what I was really about.

Looking back on it rationally now, I was about 2+ years younger than my classmates. They'd probably had and grown out of this stuff earlier. Anyway, we made a half-hearted attempt at doing some "missions" (usual stuff involving cherry bombs and home made bombs and churches and schools at night - I would probably have been quickly found and expelled today...) but at some level I still believed in my own fantasy until it just sort of passed. (Girls? Drinking?)

...until I was working on that 4th step...

I can remember feeling so embarrassed for myself that I thought I could die. I was such a nerdy dweeb. I mean, we're talking world class nerdy dweeb.

A few years ago, my step-daughter fell in love with the movie Napoleon Dynamite. She's watched it a number of times when I've been around - she particularly wanted her son (our g'son) to watch it when he went to high school. I've tried to watch it several times and must leave the room. It's just too painful. I even think I looked (gawd - look!) like him.

Anyway, it's one of the great things about growing older in sobriety (or older any way...). I've gotten over this stuff. All that embarrassment I felt for who I was (O.K. - the UNCLE fantasy was just the beginning of a weird life) is past. I've made amends. It just doesn't matter any more. I was a dweeb. Sometimes I'm still a dweeb. But, I have found the beauty of God in many people where I would not expect it.

I'm confident it must be in me as well.

Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin and, Angelique rule...

Vote for Pedro.

Mom++

Happy Mother's Day to all who have birthed, loved, nurtured or helped a child of God to grow. In my less-than-humble opinion, Motherhood is a sacred position that has way more to do with one's character than it does with the biology of procreation so I find it hard to generally accept this special day sometimes. Many who we ought to be supporting and celebrating are left out while many who only used procreation as a way of developing their (for lack of a better word) character defects relish in the limelight.

Oh well, I suppose this is the way with any holiday of the sort...

My own relationship with my mother (now 87 years young), is a gift of the program of AA. I was about 2 years dry and was "stuck" in my program and life so I sought outside help with a psychiatrist. I am of the opinion that outside help is generally (often?) useful but I realize now that I was avoiding an eventual passage through AA's 12 steps - not avoiding as in completing a term paper but avoiding as in I was sure I was going to die if I did what I presumed the steps in AA would have me do. After nearly 2 years of therapy (he was very "old school" and didn't use drugs), we had a "breakthrough" where I realized 2 facts that I'd never faced up to:

1. my parents had done the absolute best that they could too raise and nurture me - a surprisingly good job given the childhood and parenting that they'd had
2. it was a pretty poor job given any of the most generous of standards I could offer

I felt free and, for the 1st time in my life, a huge burden I didn't realize I was carrying was relieved. I invited my parents into my life in a new way and I talked about the "miracle of AA" (+ a little therapy I would allow). While that was, in fact, great relief, I had no idea that I was just getting started.

I was over 5 years sober (dry) when the wheels came off completely and I was forced to really get honest and seek help inside the program of AA. It's a long story but, for the purposes of this article, at about 7 years sober I made amends to my mother and father.

Through a 4th and 5th step as a consequence of excellent sponsorship and great support in an AA community to really do the work I needed to do, I realized the most dysfunctional element in our little family had been me. Really, a me I hardly remember today, but who, for 33 years, was constantly confused (regardless how much guidance was offered me), afraid, and isolated. The only way I knew to test anyone's love was to create problems of situations that I know my parents never desired in their lives.

As, again under the guidance of excellent sponsorship, I made those amends (including financial!!!), I was completely unprepared for the result. For the first time, I had unconditional love for them as they were.

My dad died a few years after that (thank God we were "complete") and, though I wouldn't wish another day - another breath - of the physical life he was reduced to, I miss him and remember him every day. As a widow, I've watched my mom bloom and flower into the happiest I've ever seen her.

I love it when Pam blogs about her Mama - it could be a transcription from some of our conversations. Mom hides information from me to "punish" us, she is independent until she gets scared and then she can't get my help fast enough, she is manipulative, dishonest, indirect, and generally negative.

Our plan today is to plant some iris, go to brunch in Estes Park, play a round of miniature golf and hang out for most of the day. I know for a fact there will be a constant stream of negativity cast on herself, me and anyone else that some could stick on (waitress, staff, clerks).

...and, I love her so much I could burst...

Her biggest problem in her life (she'll probably tell you as soon as you meet her), is that her son doesn't come to visit often enough.

Isn't that grand?