Slogging through...

It's hard for me to imaging that it was a year ago that I'd written an article on trudging.  I was just getting started on this blogging deal. 

I think back and I can't imagine the year of trudging that came between then and now.  I truly am in a whole different place now than I was then and I can't imagine any other path that could have gotten me from there to here.

And yet, I'm not quite sure where I am.

The seeds for my reflections are pretty obvious - some readings of others' blog entries and the beginnings for me of the annual USA ritual of filing income taxes.

As I look back through the evidence of our journey through the past year, I'm jarred at how much was done, how little was done, and how much more remains to be done.  I can hold all three of those at the same time and find myself completely frozen to make one little step forward toward accomplishment that seems like such a small deal.

So, I wait.  I pray.  I try not to over-analyze or think.  On a really good day, I steer clear of judgments and projections.  I try to reach way down deep and embrace some little thought like: "What would a grown-up do in this situation?"

And then, a window of grace opens up and suddenly I'm able to make that huge leap - not to conclusion.  That would be nice but it seems pretty rare in my world.  The great leaps I make are to put one foot in front of another.  To pick up and dial the telephone.  To place one piece of paper with another.  To fill out one line on a form.

And thus, another year passes in this brief remaining time on this path.

It's good.

What I don't know...

My sponsor has assured me for the past several months that all God requires of me in this life is my best efforts.  That, beyond that, the life I have is pretty much none of my business.

I think the reason he and I are on this so much recently is that:

1. I've felt pretty much failed at several endeavors which seem pretty important
2. There's been more self-pity than I'm comfortable in looking at around some of the circumstances in my life
3. It just feels like I should be able to be more, do more, have more - there is just a lot about "more" going on in my head these days

The solution?

Give up?  Try harder?  Both?

All I can say for me is that the only sanity I get some days is from simple acts of love and service.

I know  - makes no sense.  Life heading in the crapper?  Pick up chairs, clean floors, wash ash trays.  Hear that flushing sound from being in the crapper long enough?  Call all your sponsees - whether you're supposed to or not.  Take a new service commitment.  Take several service commitments.  Have so many service commitments that you can't pay attention to your life?  Problem is solved, isn't it?

WARNING: this is not a program for everyone.  I wouldn't expect that most people in the rooms of AA are as sick and as needy as I am.

....but, for me, for today, AA works.

....and, it's never felt to me like my efforts are or will be "good enough" - those are just my feelings...

A changing mind...

When I drank, I never would have told you that I could not control my drinking.

What happened to me - a lot - was that I changed my mind.  Often.  A lot.

The insidious nature of alcoholism in my experience wasn't that I always drank to excess (though I often did) - it was that, one day I could quit exactly like I'd intended (and the circumstances in my life warranted) and the next day I would find my self struck drunk.

When I'm talking with folks about the "peculiar mental twist" (BB p. 33)  that I find defines the mental component of my alcoholism, I will often tell the story of two consecutive nights now over 35 years ago.  Both nights, the plan was to stop for a beer or two with some folks from work, then go home to an evening with my family.  Night number one, I stopped off at the bar, had a few drinks, was home for supper and an evening with my wife and kids.  Night number two, I stopped off at the bar, had a few drinks, decided to stay on past supper (changed my mind) and meet my wife and kids at the school for a meeting later.  I called and made appropriate arrangements.  You're probably ahead of me by now - a couple of hours later, I again changed my mind and decided not to go to the school meeting and stayed at the bar.

As they were turning on the lights after last call at the bar, I was reluctant to go home, knowing I'd disappointed my family (again) and before oblivion settled in for the night, I seem to remember thinking that it was peculiar that when I'd left work, I had every intention of going home and showing up where I'd said I would that night.

The Big Book says it (among other places) as: "... If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. ... " (BB p. 44)


The real curious thought of that moment after "changing my mind" did not appear all that remarkable to me until I was sober a while.

I have been told that I'm a strong willed individual.  I actually hear words like "stubborn", "obstinate", etc. from those that love me. 

Yet, I've never had what it took to make the right choice around alcohol.  There are other places that I'm similarly challenged with peculiar mental twists in other areas (e.g. showing up in a relationship, paying bills, etc.).  I don't know if those other lapses can be ascribed to my alcoholism or my character defects directly but, well, the same spiritual malady seems to adequately explain them and the same solutions (humility, surrender, willingness) seem to allow me to live and improved version of this life.

AA works.

A good idea...

I woke up this morning and decided it would be a good idea to start drinking again.

A simple, straight-forward decision.  I've not acquired the booze yet but I really have just had enough of this pain the bother of a life of service.  I see others all around me enjoying their lives. And they drink. Why not me?

I know I've had problems with drinking but that was 26+ years ago.  A lot has changed since then.  By many measures, I'm worse off today than I was then.  It seems my experience is that, if you want to have fun, project an image of "importance," and enjoy the real fruits of hedonism, you might as well drink.

So, I guess I'll just drink.

I know this decision will cost me something.  My wife will likely leave. The family will follow her.  I may as well abandon my home and friends.  You know, consequences will come due but, well, some days it just doesn't feel all that neat being me.  Really.

So, it's time to escape.

If it gets really bad and I don't die, I suppose I could always come back.  I've seen a few do that.  Some who try to come back in are able to stay.  Others, well, I guess it's just a chance one has to take.  It's hard for me to imagine, but I suppose it might be possible (coming back).

I doubt I'll be able to keep blogging when I'm drinking.  I really have no axe to grind against AA - it worked perfectly well for me for 26  years.  And, it's just not my natural style to go to any special efforts to do something like this.  Since I expect to be homeless and without means, it would be unlikely I could find the resources to write much of a blog.  At the very least, I'd have to re-title this one and find a new theme to write about.  I suppose that's no great loss to the world either.

So, I just thought I'd let y'all know about my latest good idea.

And, if you believe any of this today, you might be as much an April fool as I am....

Out (and in) like a lamb ...

Does anyone else spend all day thinking of topics you could write a blog article about and then sit down and not remember any of those things?

I thought so...

The old adage of March coming "...in like a a lamb, out like a lion..."  (or visa-versa) seems to be false for us this year as it's been remarkably lamb-like at both ends of this month here.  Weird some in the middle, but definitely mild at both ends.

Granted, we had a little breeze yesterday (in my little community, we call anything less than a sustained 30 mph gale a breeze), but we're wonderfully mild again this morning.

Don't worry - this is not a weather blog.

I was just wondering how often this phrase we've all heard is true in fact?  As an engineer/scientist, I think I can appreciate how little direct effect the weather on one end of a month has on the other end of a month.  Probably, this "belief" in lions and lambs comes from the level of variability that happens in March.  Last week we had a foot of snow (no exaggeration) and today we're having 70 degrees and sunny skies.

But yet, I found myself expecting harsh weather at the end of the month since it was mild 4 weeks ago.

I suppose this is the most minor of "old ideas" that I am challenged to let go of.  I clearly know that it has no likely basis in fact, but it's still what I heard from my grade school teachers (the ultimate authorities of all things true).  But, even though we got lambs on both ends of the month this year, I will probably be among the first to recite the lion/lamb balance next year.

I wonder how many other "old ideas" I hang on to?

"I will die poor and alone."  "My life means nothing."  "Everybody else gets what they want, I can't have what I need." "I just need to try harder."

A few...

But then, next year it could be true that March will...

Bidness...

I'm sitting at our Area Assembly business meeting which is one of those things that I've observed most of us love to hate.  I've certainly have hated my share of these meetings.

But, I've grown more than I can imagine in the 20 years I've attended.  As the punchline of that old joke goes, I just can't see how I could have gotten here from there, except through this path.

I hear a lot of comments from sponsees and other members about how "...those meetings are all just AA politics..." or "...I get tired of all the fighting and controversy..."

I've certainly seen more politics and fighting than I've wanted to see.

But, I sometimes wonder how everyone (including me, when discouraged) thinks AA, as a whole (meaning, outside my home group and around the world) will grow and find its way without these conversations and corrections?

So, I feel badly that people like Mary in Africa may not ever experience a meeting like this.  I feel blessed and happy that I get to be a part of this deal that is way bigger than my little home group.

I love this deal.

Eat around it...

The picture on Dave's blog this morning reminded me of a meeting of a Big Book study I was co-leading a few years ago.

We were talking about the 6th step and becoming willing to have these defects removed.  A sponsee of mine thought of and shared something that I use as a metaphor yet today.  He said:

"...my relationship with my character defects in my life today is like, I'm eating a 1/2 gallon of ice cream out of the carton and suddenly discover a turd - right there in the middle of my ice cream.  I am disgusted and it sickens me.  I feel violated and angry.
Then, I think about it some and I notice that it looks like it's really just one solid chunk in the middle.  I really like the ice cream and it seems like a waste to throw out the whole carton.  I'm sort of hungry.  I think 'I could probably just nibble around the edges of the carton a little...'  I wonder how close to the chunk is safe to eat. ..."

I do exactly the same thing with character defects.  I've been around long enough and done the work in the program of A.A. so that I always recognize them when they crop up.  But, after initially being repulsed by them, I will think "...maybe I'm really OK with self pity this time..."  or "...yeah, it's resentment but it's justified and I'm only human..." or "...it's true I'm being selfish but she's being more selfish..." or ...

It's really exactly the same thing as rationalizing how close I can eat without being so disgusting that I can't live with myself.

Probably not the standard I want to live down to today.

The solution is to throw the whole thing out - now!!!

"...Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely." BB p. 58

'nuf said...

Anybody there...?

Several of my most favorite bloggers have stopped doing daily blogs - at least where I know of them - and it's really all I can do not feel like I was once more "...too late to the party because all the cool people are leaving to the next cool place to hang out..."

Or, something like that.

In fact, the number of people that are showing up at this blog is growing slowly (though nowhere nearly as large as those who've left the building).  Also, I recently took a 3-week hiatus which, in part, cleared my head a little bit about what I'm doing here.  The one thing that is really clear to me is that if I really am either in competition with others, I will loose, or if I try to do anything to drive up my readership, I will lose.

As I figured out yesterday, this (as is the rest of my life) is just not about me.  My only hope and sustenance is that I can remember the biggest promise offered in the program of AA is that I can be "useful."  On a really good day, that is my intention here along with the other areas of my life.

I will miss those who've gone.  I already do.  But, as others have observed, seasons change, people come and go and I really need to just learn to deal with it.

Doesn't mean I have to like it (I don't!) - but, it was not my decision that they leave (amazingly, I wasn't even consulted! ;-) ) .  It does mean that I will get to learn and grow with it.

Bummer.

Or not...

About me...

I sometimes get the mistaken belief that my life and what I do in it has something to do with me.  Imagine!

Yesterday, I fought myself all the way to show up for a job that I'd put off since last October.  Just think of it as a heavy ball and chain around my neck that gets heavier every day since October.  To say I was dreading it and the dread was increasing was just such an understatement.

But, God is good, and by His grace I showed up with the best attitude I could muster.  The weather was predicted to change and I wanted to make progress before that happened.

When I work, I often leave my cell phone aside as I often make bad decisions (compromising my safety or ability to get work done) about when to accept calls.  I noticed a former sponsee was calling and I was in between tasks so I took the call.

He works at a detox and had just spent some time with a "live one" who he wanted me to meet.  We talked briefly, set up something for after the weather changed and I started back to work.

I noticed another former sponsee was calling during another work lull.  I had not spoken to this guy in over 5 years.  I was surprised my phone directory still had his number and that he was still at that number.  He called because a mutual friend (and, another former sponsee of mine - we'll call him Don), was out and having a hard time getting back to the program.  We talked about Don, caught up a little, he thanked me for saving his life, tears were shed, we made a nebulous plan to grab some coffee, typical stuff.

I prayed a bit and called Don.  I think it sort of creeped him out a bit initially because he was just looking up my number to call me.  He talked about needing to "get back into the book..."  (some jargon we use around these parts) and get back to the solution he'd found a few years ago.  His was the typical story of the life that AA had given him taking him away from the solution that AA had provided.  We talked some about the nature of the disease, the problems with reservations and ego, problems and solutions.  We laughed and cried a little, made a plan to get together, and I connected him up with another sponsee who lives in his town.

I finished up the part of the work that I had to get done just as the weather was bearing down and, still dirty, headed out to the detox to meet the new guy.  We talked for nearly two hours about willingness and life.  He might be ready.  I hope so.  Of course, the similarity of our stories was sort of, well, again, creepy.

I so get that my life really has precious little to do with me...

On a good day...

This was the best day recently...

Loopholes...

In my little community, there's a story in this morning's paper that talks about removing limits to the sizes of basements.

We have some old neighborhoods where the average house size is less than 1,000 square feet (not exaggerating).  These neighborhoods have become quite desirable (over $500k) and, of course, some people with more money than brains have moved into town and either scraped or "remodeled" these houses and put up 15,000 square foot (again, not exaggerating) manor houses.  Needless to say, the neighborhoods are in arms about this and have finally, in the past 3 years, gotten control to where these sorts of upgrades are limited.

Now, however, we are looking at basements.

I've always loved looking for loopholes - reasons why the rules that should rightly apply to you and everyone else should not apply to me.

As my wife (also an admitted drunk) was reading parts of the story to me, she seemed disappointed when I suggested that they would probably limit the basement size to the dimensions of the lot.  Our minds were "off to the races!!!"  Maybe you could just put in multiple levels of basements?  You could preserve the 1,000 square foot footprint of the house and have a 3+ level, 14,000 square foot basement underneath it.  Why not?

The idea that the same rules that apply to everyone else should apply to me has been a hard-fought concept.  The posted speed limit seemed to be a good place to start.

Granted, getting 2 speeding tickets last year helped me to my surrender.  The $500/month surcharge on my car insurance helps keep me surrendered.

But, the spiritual principle of humility has not come easy for me.  A dear spiritual guide and friend of mine who died 5 years ago last Sunday was fond of the saying: "I'm not a human being trying to attain a spiritual state.  I am a spiritual being trying to learn to live in a human state."

For today, without looking for loopholes....

Avoidance, evasion, distraction ... fear

Welcome to Spring.  Really.  (Image is from my front yard after sponsee left this morning.)

I love that the 12x12 talks about me: "...our talents for procrastination, which is really sloth in five syllables..." (12x12 p. 67)

I've had ample opportunity the past few weeks to become clear about what "stuck" can look like - even with a bit of sobriety and spiritual insight and experience.

Just to be clear - I do this to me.

Today, I am warm.  I am well fed.  There is beauty and love in my life in abundance.  I am healthy.  I have more opportunities to be useful and of service than I can shake a stick at.

And, that's the problem.  For the past few weeks I've spent much more energy shaking sticks than I have at being productive and engaged in my life.

What that really looks like, on a real basis, is that I sit down at my computer and, rather than looking for opportunities to make progress on any one of the dozens (not an exaggeration) of things I might be doing to be useful, instead I find some bright fun thing to distract me for hours.  Or, I play Freecell.  Or, I follow one wild hare or another.  For days.

Until the last minute.

Then, with all the heroic efforts I can muster, I try like the devil to protect my image.  What that looks like is often: "So, I can't do what I'd intended to do - what's the minimum effort I can put forth and still look like a great guy."  You get the picture - we're not talking anything I'm proud of here...

As best I can figure, the basis for most of this non-activity which looks a lot like "sloth" is fear.  Fear that, if don't agree to "take on" what you'd like me to do, you'll think less of me.  Fear that my best effort won't give be enough to build or sustain the "image" that my ego think it has to have in order to survive.

ugghhhh...

So, now you have it.  My dirty little secret.  My primary purpose in admitting it here is probably something like a blogged 5th step.  (I've already been down this road with my sponsor as my '...another person...' per our program of recovery.)  It is truly my hope and prayer that this flaw in my character gets repaired before it kills me.

Truly...

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...

Sponsorship 6...

An exercise I often  challenge my sponsees (and also myself) with is: "What exactly would you have to give up to call this moment perfect?"

Mr. Sponsor Pants posted an article today that was much along the same lines I was thinking.  As usual, he says it better than I.

I am often struck by how hard we try to take a perfect moment and make it into something less than or worse, different than what it is.

I think that's often the hardest thing to do in sponsorship - to be the unflinching mirror of the reality that we get to support those who not only don't want support, but want someone who will instead buy into the drama of the moment. 

Instead, I might get to be the cheering section for letting go of those old ideas of what life ought to look like, shedding the myth of a world in which we can control all of the circumstances, discarding the avoidance of consequences we're certain will be unpleasant and permanent.

Coaching someone toward surrender may not feel much like a noble endeavor, but it's often the best 15 minutes on the phone that I can get for a day.

...because sometimes, I can hear what I'm telling someone else....

Aw shucks, I'm going to live after all...

I've been sick (head cold) for the past 3 days.

I have lots of experience around sickly, heroic people.  People who rise above their challenges and accomplish amazing things while presented with ill health or tough life circumstances.  While I was laying around this past weekend, I watched the program Temple Grandin, a semi-documentary movie of Temple Grandin on HBO.  It truly is amazing what people can accomplish when so many odds are stacked against them.

I'm not those people.

I get a head cold and it serves as an excuse for an extremely self-centered me to focus more on me - How am I feeling?  Am I going to die?  Can I get something out of this?  Can I disappear and nobody notice? Am I going to live?

Way to much of me for me.

The good news is that I feel better today.

The even better news is that, so far, I've thought about at least 2-3 people besides myself today.

God is good.

...and AA works.

Haven...

I spent some of the weekend at a local conference with a theme of "Haven at last."  Comes from our Big Book:

"Many a man, yet dazed from his hospital experience, has stepped over the threshold of that home into freedom. Many an alcoholic who entered there came away with an answer. He succumbed to that gay crowd inside, who laughed at their own misfortunes and understood his. Impressed by those who visited him at the hospital, he capitulated entirely when, later, in an upper room of this house, he heard the story of some man whose experience closely tallied with his own. The expression on the faces of the women, that indefinable something in the eyes of the men, the stimulating and electric atmosphere of the place, conspired to let him know that here was haven at last." BB - pp. 160

 I just love that....

Self...

Our good friend Philip continues to amaze me and do this deal.  I'm sure he is certainly giving me more than I'm giving him at this point.

 This morning, we recited the 3rd step prayer together on our knees and he got started writing out his list of resentments.  As we read from the book, I realized how very many of the answers for my  trials of the past few weeks were suggested in that portion of the Big Book that starts after the part we normally sleep through at the beginning of our meetings:

"The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. ... Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. ...

"... What usually happens? The show doesn't come off very well. ... He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. ... Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? ... And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?

"Our actor is self-centered--ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays. ... Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments, or our self-pity?

"Selfishness--self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. ...

"So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! ... Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. ... We had to have God's help.

" ...First of all, we had to quit playing God. ... Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. ... "

(3rd step promises?)

" ... (1) We had a new Employer. ... (2) He provided what we needed ... (3) we became less and less interested in ourselves ... (4) More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. ... (5) we felt new power flow in ... (6) we enjoyed peace of mind ... (7) we discovered we could face life successfully ... (8) we became conscious of His presence ... (9) we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. (10) We were reborn.

" ... 'God, I offer myself to Thee--to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!' ... " BB pp. 60-63

Seems pretty clear:  Problem = Self

I can't fix a selfish, sick mind, with a selfish, sick mind.

Philip asked me: "...So, at some point does this become, like, an automatic thing?  This surrender?"

I wished I could give him a different answer than what my experience is.  I assured him that, over time, I've developed some different responses and that I'm not as reluctant as I once was around noticing and acknowledging that what was going on was just another manifestation of the selfishness and self-centeredness that I've discovered as a result of this process.

But, for today, my selfishness didn't have to result in acts of homicide or suicide.

That seemed to give him some hope.

Imagine...

Service...

The host committee for the 2010 AA International Convention is now soliciting volunteers.  I promised last year that I would post this information as soon as I became aware of it.  As I pointed out in a previous article, while I love our International Conventions, I have survived more than one of them by taking a service commitment while there.

It looks like there's volunteer opportunities on the web site for both AA's and Al-Anon's.

We are signed up (I think you have to register for the convention before you can sign up to volunteer - there's a link to that on the volunteer page).  Knowing the folks from Texas AA as I do, you might want to sign up soon so that they don't take all the volunteer opportunities away from the rest of us. ;-)  There are literally volunteer opportunities 24 hours a day.

As much as I love you all in cyberspace, I am very much looking forward to seeing about 50,000 of you in San Antonio this summer.

A word on the side - thanx so much for those of you who offered your support and encouragement in comments and email related to my last post.  As we seem to have all figured out together, there is no absolute "lesson" in John's awful actions but the only sane response is love and compassion for the families involved.  ...and, for John.  Sadness is just a part of the deal - and, I think I'm too inclined to simply leave it there - milk the drama and the emotion and not move from there when it's time.

AA works.

Pain is required...

I really don't know if pain is required to recover from alcoholism or not.  You hear it said at meetings around here that "...today, pain is optional..." - like, what they've learned in AA has given them a way of managing their lives to be able to avoid the self-inflicted consequences of their actions.  I think I know what they mean but I'm ready to hang that in my head as "one of those sayings you hear in the rooms that might be helpful or harmful, depending on who's hearing it."  As you might guess, this is a pretty long list.  It's a list of what, IMLTHO, makes AA meetings some of the most dangerous places to learn about the program of AA.

My sponsee Rob fell on the ice last Friday and broke his hip.  He was discharged yesterday so I grabbed some Panera Bread souffles and we had our regular Tuesday breakfast at his place.  He was 1/2 stoned on Vicodin.  We did not talk about his pain medications (other than that he was taking them as the doctor prescribed).  All my guys have it clear that they only person worse to proscribe for them than doctor (their name) is doctor Ed.   If he wasn't taking them as prescribed, we'd have had a different conversation.

But, pain was up for him and an ad in the local paper (he's an advertising guy so he notices that stuff more than me) for one of the local medical M-J- (fill in the blank - I'm trying to keep Google from indexing something I really have no desire to be found in my blog) dispensaries.  Medical M-J- is majorly "up" in this state and one of the local dispensaries ran an ad with the tag line "Stop Your Pain Today!"

Both Rob and I are dealing with sponsees who are early in recovery.  While everyone deserves a chance at "getting this" (an AA program that works for them) at their own level, it's hard to not compare and contrast those with a different level of motivation than those who just can't seem to show up at a meeting, make a phone call or, do virtually anything that might inconvenience themselves early in sobriety.

Some of our best AA literature, IMLTHO, is the DVD "Bill Wilson Talks About the 12 Traditions."  In this film, around the time he talks about traditions 4 and 5, Bill makes this startling claim (paraphrasing):

"... We discovered early in our history that we have but one true 'teacher' in AA.  That teacher is John Barlycorn (booze) ..."

I can remember the chilling impact that statement had on me when I first heard this film in early sobriety.  I suppose that I was sicker than most along the lines that I had believed that I was going to approach AA with the same regard as I did most new and potentially painful things - with an intellectual detachment that would save my butt if I couldn't somehow manage success.

Today, as I look over the cases Rob and I discussed as well as when I think back on the dozens of folks on this path that I still think should have been successful because, well, they worked this program better than I ever did (or could) - I am intensely grateful that I'd suffered sufficiently to recover this far.  I truly need not learn one more lesson at the feet of John Barleycorn (I pray God!).

For me, the pain was required to accept the solution that was offered.

"... With us it is just like that." BB p. 15.

Update....

So many of you have offered prayers from my post of yesterday that I feel I owe an update.

The sister-in-law rallied for ~16 hours on Saturday-Sunday.  It was a great time of family renewal - everyone there had a chance to express love, affection and, support that had been unexpressed - sometimes for decades or a lifetime.  The warmth and hope was great - everyone was happy - especially the sister.

Then, Sunday afternoon sister's fortunes turned again.

At about 7pm, she died.

The family said her last few moments with them were the best gift of any holiday they could have ever wanted for.  There were about 20 people in her room when she passed.

AA and Alanon showed up and is showing up in ways we can be proud of.

No one has yet heard of or from the daughter.

Thank you.  Give yourself a hug from me as I can't reach you.

The zeroes...

It has seemed like I've wanted to post something about the decade or at least the year so I've been noodling about it some - I can't seem to get any clear direction.  I also have another article I need to write but I'm still waiting for that story to come to a clear transition point.

That might just summarize the past decade - in fact, a significant part of my life - in a nutshell: great plans, many distractions and, with God's grace, small bits of progress/growth.

It seems indulgent to write here about Auld Lang Sine when Mary in Africa is already well into the next decade...

I never thought that, better than 1/2 way through my 3rd decade of sobriety, I would be here.

I don't remember much of the past decade too fondly.  Though there were some wondrous, positive moments, I bet I could match them 2-for-1 with negatives.

All the negatives are circumstantial: money, jobs, titles, stuff, etc.

Among the positives are: good health, relationships, new lives, etc.

And, I can't imagine any other possible path that could have got me from there to here.

And here, tonight, is just damn near perfect.

Blessings to all on this most perfect of beginnings for what I trust will be a wonderful year.