RECRUM: Recovery Ruminations

Beacon of Hope

2009-01-19T22:49:00.000-08:00

It's been a YEAR since I blogged!?!? Holy mackerel, time flies!

There's all kinds of new buttons on Blogger I don't know how to use.

I have "follower", whatever the hell that is. Please stop by her blog and give her some good recovery-blog cheer!

I love you, too, JJ!!

So what's new with me? NOTHING! I am thriving in a drama-free, routine, just-for-today, yet busy, productive and hectic, lifestyle. My son is six, he lives with me half time. The ex and I are getting along great, we are joined at the hip in our passionate commitment to our son; and other than that we leave each other alone. (She has a boyfriend now, which helps A LOT! LOL)

I just celebrated my fourth AA birthday. And I have been free of nicotine for over a year. Thank you, God, for these gifts of Your grace!

I seldom make it to AA meetings these days. I've started going to a new Celebrate Recovery group. My old one was getting strange for me, since the ex was a regular. Plus, there were hardly any drunks, either -- quite a few self-identified "sex addicts" dragged there by their girlfriends who not only don't put out but don't want them masturbating, either. It got kind of creepy listening to these guys surrendering to their pussywhippedness. "Jesus doesn't want me to beat off." I'm as evangelical as the next reluctant Christian drafted by God as a result of recovery, but fercrissake... I took a hiatus from Celebrate Recovery and in the meantime a guy started going who became the ex's boyfriend. If I were to go back, it surely would make for some awkward moments in the group sharing. All in all, it looked like God was leading me elsewhere. So I was kind of out of the recovery community awhile. Then I got the idea to bring Christmas dinner to the guys at the sober living residence I lived in. I did, and one of the guys invited me to his Celebrate Recovery group. I love the way stuff like that happens, all the time, every time I make any effort to give back, to be of service: I'm always the one who benefits most.

I take nothing for granted. I'm genuinely grateful for every blessing God has given me. I haven't been active lately in AA, but I always remember that you guys in and around AA gave me a way to live a life worth living; and I try, every day, to practice the principles in all my affairs and carry the message, mostly by example, of living a good and great life, to everyone I encounter, because it's not just for us drunks. For example, our message beats hell out of the cold showers those poor "sex addicts" at CR are condemned to. Shit, don't even get me started on the homophobia the Saddleback curia attempts to parachute into CR -- fortunately, I haven't seen that get any traction at the CR grassroots, particularly among those of us grounded in AA.

Well, I'm just rambling here. Let this post be a beacon of hope to the newcomer: even when your sobriety begins to be measured in years, it is perfectly possible to remain as crazy and stupid as you were when you were drinking.

Rigorous Honesty

2008-01-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

It seems a good way to start the new year by implementing yet another form of rigorous honesty here on this blog.

For over three years, I have used an avatar that is not actually me:

This handsome gentleman is, of course, Bill W., co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. I admire him very much, and I do, honestly, try to live by the principles he and the other good oldtimers laid out for us.

He is also a lot better-looking than I am.

I think, though, it's time for me to have an avatar that reflects who I actually am, so that with a glance a reader can get a sense of how I really think and act. In the spirit of rigorous honesty, here is my new avatar:

I actually look more like this than I do like Bill, anyway.

Happy New Year! May God shower you with blessings throughout 2008!

Magic

2007-12-28T16:30:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone is having great holidays. I sure am! I was in Chicago with my son for Christmas with his Grandma and Grandpa. This was the first trip back there in three years. Three years ago today, I had just gotten back to California, after taking my son there for Christmas. Hmmmm...

(No, no, don't worry, I have a good chance of staying sober today. I have one of those pesky meeting commitments tonight, that always seem to get in the way of a quick bender.)

Anyway, it was one of the best Christmases I can remember. Seeing it through the eyes of a five-year-old brings out the magic of Christmas. I reluctantly gave up "magical thinking" when I got sober. You know: "If I do this one dramatic/decisive/astonishing/brilliant (i.e., ridiculous/crazy/stupid) thing, everything will get better and I'll be happy." I didn't have to do anything to make the magic happen this Christmas -- it just happened!

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It's been 34 days since I had a cigarette. Pretty soon I just may change my little smoking counter from hours to days.

I've frequented an online smoking cessation forum, and it helps a lot. I've hooked up with a few people, "Quit Buddies" they're called, and we stay in close touch by email. It seems to informally replicate some of the sponsor/sponsee relationship in AA. Except there's no steps, it's between equals, and none of my quit buddies has demanded that I wash their car or has asked to borrow money. Other than that, it's pretty much the same! LOL

Anyway, the forum reminds me of how much time I devoted to blogging in my early months of sobriety. I miss it! Why don't I get back to spending more time blogging with the wonderful recovering people in blogtopia!? Oh, yeah -- I have a job now. Oh, and 50% custody of my son. And then there's the fellowship commitments. I suppose these are all good things... but I still miss blogging with everyone! :)

Numbers

2007-12-06T10:35:00.000-08:00

I've played with statistics here before, and I tend to be pretty skeptical of statistics about prevalence of substance abuse. How do you define and measure recovery? How can you believe what an alcoholic/addict tells you about their alcohol/drug use?

That being said, I started wondering about smoking among alcoholics -- specifically, how many smokers are alcoholics/druggies? So I found some statistics.

I've seen statistics, and heard anecdotes and observed, that 80%-90% of alcoholics are or were smokers. Let's call it 70% for the sake of argument.

Government statistics indicate 21% of adults smoke. Let's call it 25%, since the respondents probably lied.

Now the really tricky piece: what percentage of the population is alcoholic/addict? This is pure guesswork, IMHO. I've seen guesses range from about 10% to about 25%. Let's call it 15%.

Okay, using these guesses: of those ten people freezing on the loading dock on their smoke break, four are alcoholics and/or druggies. That's right: crank through these not-unreasonable numbers, and you can expect over 40% of the smokers you see to abuse other substances.

I don't know about you, but I never really thought about smoking as an indicator of other addictions. Turns out it's probably not a bad clue that someone has serious problems with more than tobacco.

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Which gives me additional perspective on the smoking-cessation support forums on the web. The one at About.com is great, the people are terrific, it really helps me a lot. The approach is so different from 12-step recovery, though. I keep wanting to post, "Of course we can't quit, of course we relapse, of course we don't have the will-power, of course we're too weak to stop, of course we are picking fights with people. We're addicts and we're powerless!" There's no way I can approach cigarettes as anything but incinerated alcohol.

It's fascinating to me that 12-step recovery dominates overcoming every addiction you can name -- except smoking. There is, in fact, Nicotine Anonymous, but it has nothing like the status of 12-stepping for other addictions. Why do we turn alcohol, drugs, over-eating, sex obsession and codependence over to a Higher Power, but depend on self-will to overcome nicotine?

I'm not saying it's good or bad, it's just interesting that we, as a society and culture, treat nicotine differently. As for me, as I said, I have to 12-step my smoking or I'm lost.

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I've been reminded of some of our AA sayings about days and years. You sometimes hear, when an oldtimer relapses, "He had too many years and not enough days." I've heard, and said myself: "The years come easy. It's the days that are hard."

I've got my smoking counter on this blog in hours. My sobriety counter is in days, but I can only remember my days to the nearest hundred or so.

A day is a BIG deal to me again! :)

No Smoking. Inventory In Progress.

2007-12-04T14:19:00.001-08:00

This is the longest I've gone without smoking in years. Today is Day 11.

It reminds me a LOT of early sobriety. I don't know what to do with myself, because my routine is disrupted and I'm consciously not doing what comes naturally to me. I tell myself the familiar lies, and I still believe them: "Just one pack, then I'll never have the urge again." It's a good reminder to this alcoholic of how my brain works and that I can never, ever take my sobriety for granted.

I'm grateful to find myself putting recovery to work with smoking. I can recognize the lies I tell myself. I can take it one day, one hour, one moment at a time. I let God handle it, because I can't. I don't worry about smoking tomorrow. I'm a smoker, an addict, and smoking is what I do -- there's no reason to expect I won't smoke tomorrow. But I'm not smoking right now, this minute, and that's a gift from God and I will be grateful for it. I will pray for the willingness to let God handle it when tomorrow comes, too.

The obsession to smoke has not been lifted yet. It's good to be reminded how it was before the obsession to drink was lifted. And it's good to have the experience of having that obsession lifted, so I know it can happen with cigarettes, too.

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I'm leading a step study (which basically means I have the key to the room we meet in), and we're on Step Four. Last night we had an inventory-writing session. I looked at my first fourth step from three years ago for the first time since doing steps six and seven. How marvelous to look at the resentments and fears I had, to acknowledge them again, and to recognize how many of them I have let go of! I know I need to dig a little deeper, and get beyond the general feeling of relief and well-being I have since the recent resolution of the main issues of my divorce. Even so, it's gratifying to see this fourth step looks a lot like a tenth step.

It's astonishing. I don't work anything like a great program -- I think it's pretty half-assed, actually. All I bring to it is a little willingness, a little humility, a little service I do resentfully, some inconsistent gratitude. In return, I've been showered with blessings totally out of proportion to the effort and commitment I put into it. The blessings and miracles are so plentiful I end up hardly noticing them a lot of the time -- yes, take them for granted -- until I take a good look with something like a step-four inventory.

Recovery -- particularly AA and the doors it has opened -- continues to amaze me, surprise me and exhilirate me.

K-Fed and Me

2007-11-09T13:46:00.000-08:00

My divorce is coming to a head. It started about 6 months ago when the Qualifier hit me with a county child support suit -- from the agency that is designed to establish paternity and go after deadbeat and runaway dads. I coaxed her into dropping the suit and going to mediation. She bolted from mediation and reinstated the county suit when she discovered it wasn't all stacked to give her everything she wanted.

So I hired an attorney and filed for divorce. The Qualifier went ballistic when she was served. She really thought I would hold still while the county gouged my eyes out. She didn't really want to resolve anything -- she wanted child support as a single mom, and health benefits as a spouse. Every which way.

She hired the most expensive lawyer in town -- and this town is LA. She has the same attorney as Britney Spears is using right now in her custody case with Kevin Federline. But trust me, not nearly as much money. The attorney burned through her retainer on a response that basically argued that she's really, really pissed, she doesn't like me at all, and therefore I should have no access to my son. Then we went to the court's custody "conciliator" and the Qualifier agreed to everything I wanted -- which threw out everything her attorney did. Next week we will go to court to determine child support and property settlement. This is the property settlement equation: (0+0)/2. Meanwhile, my attorney got the county to drop their suit since it's all being handled in divorce court. Since she's out of money, the Qualifier is talking about going to court without an attorney.

It's kind of sad. Granted, next week is a long time away and anything can happen, but right now it looks like, three months and thousands of dollars in attorney fees later, she's going to end up with a much worse deal than I was ready to make with her when she walked out of mediation.

From what I'm hearing, Britney isn't making out much better than my Qualifier, either. Yo, K-Fed, you and me, dog! (Of course, Britney is the only one who can make this decision, but it looks to this alcoholic like the girl could use a program.)

I'll see how it all falls out, but I will feel bad if the Qualifier gets screwed. I have an idea of what a fair outcome would be, and I think my attorney may be good enough to produce an outcome more favorable to me than a fair outcome. Once I make allowance for my attorney fees, I would consider giving my son a gift, care of the Qualifier, in the form of a gift card to Target, or something like that. Just to make up some of the ground I think the Qualifier should, in fairness, get. Is that codependent? Cross-talk invited, please.

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Every now and then I hear someone taking a birthday token talk about the rough year they had, staying sober through divorce, illness, deaths of loved ones, and financial crisis. I'm always pretty impressed with that, wondering how they do it. Now, I'm a couple months from my third birthday, and if I stay sober each of those days between now and then, I'll be talking about staying sober through divorce, ongoing financial crisis, and job insecurity. I guess the other folks do it the same way I have: one day at a time.

What it shows me is that, these big life events are not enough to make me relapse. To take this alcoholic out, it will take something truly, momentously, insanely trivial. Divorce? Serene and calm. Financial crisis? Happy, joyous and free. My truck overheats? Look out below.

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My hit rate is going to skyrocket with all this (relevant and on-topic) blogging about Britney Spears and K-Fed. I bet I come out near the top of searches for "recovery blog life verse romans britney spears k-fed." It would increase even more if I brought up that other poor kid, Lindsay Lohan. Early 20's, on the slippery slope of substance abuse, keeps leaving rehabs, seems to want to stop, but not really. How many of us in the rooms don't have a story a lot like hers?? I wonder how I would have handled my early runs if I was famous and had way too much money. I pray that she -- and all the millions of other kids just like her, except they're broke and unknown -- will find her way in from the storm.

UPDATE-----UPDATE----- November 30, 2007 -----UPDATE-----UPDATE

Divorce court went as well as can be expected. The Qualifier showed up with TWO attorneys in tow. But the five of us sat in the courthouse cafeteria and hammered out an agreement acceptable to everyone. There are still a few loose ends to tie out in the next couple months, but custody and child support are settled. I'm delighted to have 50% custody. As I expected, financially the deal is much more favorable to me than what I was ready to agree to in mediation.

It's a HUGE relief. I've had a lot of anxiety the past few months. Having some resolution and reducing the uncertainty and chaos makes a big difference.

Wildfire

2007-10-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I happened to be in part of Southern California that was close to one of the fires, and I went to a meeting there. A lady compared the fire to herself when she was drinking, how similarly she affected the people around her, and I understood exactly what she meant.

You never know where the fire might start, but if the situation is just exactly wrong, it rapidly turns into an uncontrollable conflagration. Depending on the wind, one spot escapes without damage, and a few feet away is total destruction. Even if your own house is spared, it is terrifying, uncertain, and chaotic. You have to flee from it in a hurry, in a panic, instantly choosing a handful of precious items you can save. The air is poisoned for days. Rebuilding can take years, and the memory will never go away.

So many people had to respond to me the same way people have to respond to wildfire.

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My prayers continue for my neighbors in California who lost loved ones, lost homes, were injured, or remain in shelters. Grateful thanks to the firefighters whose courage and skill kept the injury and destruction to such astonishing minimums.

How It Works

2007-10-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.

Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it--then you are ready to take certain steps.

At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

Remember that we deal with alcohol--cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power--that One is God. May you find Him now!

Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. we asked His protection and care with complete abandon.

Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than our-selves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Many of us exclaimed, “What an order! I can’t go through with it.” Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventure before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.
b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
c) That God could and would if He were sought.

Knuckle Under

2007-09-02T21:31:00.001-07:00

The last couple days have been one of those glorious moments when serenity and joy wash over me, for no particular identifiable reason. I've just felt good and happy. It's such a wonderful gift from God, to be willing to turn my anxieties and fears over to Him, and simply enjoy His grace like a walk in the sunshine.

Not that people and events around me are particularly going my way. In the middle of divorce and custody games, doing my best to help my 5-year-old adjust to spending nights with daddy, and his mom's unpredictability, while he deals with starting kindergarten next week. On top of which, the company I work for is coming apart -- the CEO was removed by the board this week, putting the medium-term independent existence of the company (and therefore my job) in doubt.

My response was interesting to observe. On one hand, there was one brief episode a few nights ago that I got the "fuck-its" and started thinking that a twelve-pack was a really good idea. (I didn't act on it.) Not a big deal, I get that now and then -- confirmation, if anyone is in doubt, that, yup, I'm still an alcoholic. I look at these urges as signals that I'm off-center, out of focus. Usually when I'm "off-center" it really means I'm putting Phil's will at the center, rather than seeking to align my will with God's will.

I realized that I was merely irritated with God's timing. I already have my hands full, Lord -- dealing with my job and career aren't on my schedule for another few months. I also realized, to my astonishment, that my irritation did not escalate to full-blown resentment toward my company, my boss, my wife, my son, the clerk at 7-11 or other innocent bystanders. Not even toward myself or God, my two favorite targets of resentment.

And I ended up just feeling good. I even filled out a prayer request card at church for the acting CEO, that God will guide him, and grant him wisdom, courage and integrity.

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I'm leading a step study, and so have the privilege of working the steps again myself. We're on Step Three, and I credit this step working on me for my strangely serene response to my circumstances. Until recently, I've looked at Step Three as telling me, "The party is over. There is no more fun any more. You have to give up all the stuff you want to do, and knuckle under to the demands of what God requires of you. It's time for obedience to the stuff you don't want." But my experience over the past three years is that, yes, I DO have to give up "what I want," but the outcome is not slavery and misery, but freedom and joy.

There's a popular Christian song that I now see as a marvelous Third Step prayer:

I'm trading my sorrows, I'm trading my shame...
I'm trading my sickness, I'm trading my pain.
I'm laying them down
For the joy of the Lord.

When the Third Step suggests that I make a decision to turn my will and my life over, all it is asking is that I let go of the sorrow, shame, sickness and pain that Phil's Way demands I carry around. The care of God as I understand Him is nothing less than accepting the amazing, radical gift of freedom and joy that He has been offering me all my life. Step Three is not, as it turns out, a demand and requirement to be an obedient slave who will be punished for stepping off the straight and narrow. It is an invitation to conform myself, however imperfectly, to the person God desires me to be -- and God wants me to be happy, joyous and free.

Divorce Mediation

2007-08-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

This is what divorce mediation is like:

Imagine playing a board game with a child. When the child realizes the grownups aren't letting her win, she gets mad, tells them they're being unfair and ganging up on her, then tips over the table and runs away.

Back to square one, this time with adversarial representation.

It's been a lousy few days...

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At 8/20/2007 02:26:00 PM, Phil said...

Thank you all for your sympathy and support -- it really helps!

You know, it just deepens the truth of the program and the fellowship -- I'm not alone, I'm not unique, many have walked this path before me. That comforts me a lot. Just like with the booze, many have walked through the same storm and are now walking in the sunshine. If I follow in your footsteps, I will get to the sunshine, too.

And, once again, I find myself challenged to work the Third Step: how much of my will and my life am I really willing to turn over to the care of God? How much am I holding back, without even realizing it?

I continually discover more of myself that I have refused to abandon to God. I consistently practice insanity, doing the same things again and again expecting different results. I consistently base my actions on my fear, on my distrust of God and His purposes, believing in the face of all evidence that I have to do "this one thing" my way, because God's way will cause me pain, it won't work, not this time.

The truth is, I don't think any of you are walking in the sunshine now by acting on your fears, distrusting God, or indulging in "alanonic" behavior. If I want to join you in the sunshine, I have to follow in your footsteps by giving it up to God, do the next indicated thing, trust that God will make all things right if I surrender to His will.

Some hypocrite I know once told his sponsee: "You don't have to understand it. You don't have to agree with it. You don't have to like it. You just have to do it."

Miracle

2007-07-04T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hi, everyone! Happy Independence Day!

I finally moved out of sober living last weekend -- 18 months (almost to the day) after I moved in, for what I planned would be a month or two. I've been looking for an apartment for a couple months, and getting kind of discouraged. I needed a place near my 5-year-old son's school (he starts kindergarten in the fall -- he graduated from preschool in a cap and gown a few weeks ago), where he could have his own room, in an area I felt safe with my son, that I could afford. I was starting to define "near school" rather loosely, becoming willing to sleep in the living room so he could have his room, and stretching my definition of "affordable."

Then, a couple weeks ago, I saw an ad for a place in the perfect location, a two-bedroom, and a rent at least $250 a month below market. I filled out the application, and I got it. My son is thrilled, he just loves it. He's very excited he can stay overnight with daddy. The place is perfect -- it even has drapes and a dishwasher.

I pray frequently, I'm a real 11th-Stepper. Normally I pray for knowledge of God's will for me, and the willingness and ability to carry it out. Last week, though, my prayer was, "God, give me the apartment." And, wow, He answered the prayer. I took it to be that my desire was aligned with God's purpose. Nevertheless, when I couldn't remember if there was a refrigerator, on my way to sign the lease I prayed, "God, let there be a refrigerator." Guess what -- there's a fridge! I shared this with the guys at my Friday group, and said that now I was praying that the cable company had left the service on, and that I would be able to pull internet service from an unsecured wireless network. The guys suggested I may be pushing it... (Although I'm willing to make the argument that cable companies are part of Satan's dominion and therefore God wouldn't mind me pirating service. I'm no theologian, but it makes sense to me.)

Seriously, though, it does seem miraculous, that this great apartment appears at a ridiculously low price, and falls in my lap, seemingly just so I could have the right place to live and take care of my son.

In the last 18 months I've struggled to get my work life back on track, struggled financially, struggled to be a good father, struggled to get along with my estranged wife. Sometimes it seemed I didn't have the resources to make it through the week. Maybe the gift God gave me in this struggling is recognizing that He gives me everything He needs me to have.

So I don't look at this miracle as a special favor from God, or some sort of reward for being such a great guy. I consider it something God needs me to have. He has His own reasons for providing me with what I want. I believe that God needs me to provide a good home for my son, for starters. I'm sure there are additional, less obvious, reasons that will unfold and become clear if I am willing to keep my eyes, mind and heart open to them.

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At the sober living I was at, every new guy who moves in writes an essay which he reads at his first weekly house meeting. The topic is, on one side of the paper, "What I Can Do For the House," and on the other side, "What the House Can Do For Me." I don't remember much of what I wrote a year and a half ago, but I do remember my expectations were way off target from what actually happened. So, as I left the house, I wrote about what I actually did for the house and what the house actually did for me:

What I Did For the House
I made my bed every morning.
I signed in and out every day.
I observed the curfew.
I did my chores.
When I did not do my chore and didn't have someone cover me, I paid the fine.
I cleaned up after myself.
I paid my rent in full and on time.
I served as house secretary.
I attended the weekly house meeting, and called the manager beforehand if I couldn't be there.
I tried to make each new man feel welcome, at home, accepted, and respected.
I tried to be a good friend: encouraging guys when they were having a hard time, celebrating their successes, sharing the journey of recovery, and enjoying our times together as house brothers.
I tried to be considerate and respectful of every man in the house.
I stayed clean and sober.
What the House Did For Me
It gave me an affordable place to live when I arrived in LA broke, jobless, and knowing only a few people.
It gave me friendships with men I love and admire greatly.
It gave me structure, discipline and accountability.
It showed me how to serve others.
It showed me how I'm the one who benefits the most when I serve others.
It taught me not to judge anyone by their appearance, circumstances or experiences -- only by the content of their character.
I learned that when I find out about a man's age, drug of choice, criminal record, ethnicity, material well-being, job, tattoos, haircut, clothing, experience in recovery, or length of sobriety/clean time, I have found out nothing of importance about him, nothing relevant to anything. I know nothing about a man until I see how he treats his fellows -- then I know everything about him that I need to know.
It showed me how small and insignificant my own problems and my own plans are.
It showed me in rich detail what addiction, relapse and recovery really are.
It made me believe in miracles.
I was accepted and loved by my brothers just as I am. I could take off my mask.
It showed me that God is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves -- and that God chooses to use each of us as His instrument to help all of us -- and all of us as His instrument to help each of us.
I stayed clean and sober.

Kids' Church

2007-04-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

This isn't where I thought God was leading me...

A couple months ago I volunteered for Kid's Church, went to a day-long program for children's ministries hosted (but -- significantly -- not produced) by my church, and started going with my son every week. I was excited at first. I didn't know what I was doing, didn't know what to expect each Sunday, but that was okay. The weeks went by, and... I still didn't know what I was doing and I never knew what to expect. My role ended up taking boys to the bathroom, and being playground monitor when the kids' activity ended before church got out.

One of the things they said at the children's ministries program was never be alone with the kids: always have another adult, not related to you, present when you're with the kids. That way you avoid any risk of accusations where it's your word against the kids' word. "Don't put yourself in that position." It was almost tacit that all adults involved must be background-checked -- so obvious it was barely mentioned.

So... I was alone with the boys in the bathroom. I was alone on the playground, with up to thirty kids, pre-K to 5th grade, for 45 minutes at a time. I haven't been background-checked, I haven't been given any orientation. It got sprung on me: "Okay, everyone go out to the playground with Mr. Phil until church gets out."

Worse yet, there just isn't much going on. Usually the kids just watch a video. Every two or three weeks they have some hands-on activity. The kids, all ages, are all together, so whatever they do, it isn't age-appropriate for most of the kids.

My son doesn't like it. He won't go unless I'm there. I don't blame him. I don't like it, either. I started dreading going to church.

And yet I knew for some reason God had led me there. I'm not a teacher, I have no experience, I don't know how to set up a good Sunday School. Am I supposed to try to transform this kids' ministry into what my son needs? I wouldn't know where to begin.

I wanted to do this so I could participate in my son's spiritual life. But it had the effect that not only do I not want to volunteer, I don't want to send my son there. First, there's not much there to feed his spiritual life. Second, I don't want him in the care of a completely untrained person I know nothing about. Third, he hates it.

Where is God leading me with this? I think God wanted me to see clearly that my son is not getting what he needs from my church. It helped me rediscover and reinforce that there is nothing he needs more than spiritual development. It is the most important thing I need to give him. He needs it, and he needs it now. But I am hardly equipped to do it myself. I don't have the spiritual maturity or the teaching skills to do it. I need my church to provide the tools, and they aren't there. I can't let my son wait until they maybe appear at my church, or until I somehow figure out how to do it all myself.

So I'm researching alternatives. Ironically, my participation in my church's children's ministry is leading me away from my church. I'm not planning to abandon my church altogether, but I have to find something for my son. I found a nearby church that looks promising on paper. They have a good size Sunday School, and it meets at a time that I can take him there, then go to my church for "regular church." They also have a weekday evening for kids his age. I'm going to try it, and see how he likes it and I like it.

-------------------------------------------

I acknowledge, but don't apologize for, this post not having specifically to do with "recovery." A couple things I've heard at meetings come to mind: "If it comes out of an alcoholic's mouth, it has to do with alcoholism." And, "I have problems in areas of my life today that before I didn't have areas." Without recovery from alcoholism and daily surrender to my Higher Power, I never would have been able to recognize the utter criticality of my four-year-old's spiritual life and development. Even my willingness to recognize I'm incapable of giving him, all by myself, everything he needs; my willingness to question the comfortable certainty that my church is giving me what I need, thank you very much, so it must be just fine for my son, too -- these are gifts from recovery.

I'm grateful for these gifts, for these hard blessings. It's been very difficult for me to be grateful lately, I've had a difficult time with prayer, haven't had easy conversations with God. Too many resentments, too much self-pity, not enough trust and faith, not enough patience. Too many aspects of my life not going the way I want them to go, when I want them to go. No need for me to write all the details, they've already been written in the 12X12...

I've been roped into leading a step workshop, starting next month. At my church. Not AA, but AA's steps, the real deal, not made easier and softer to suit your average Protestant's taste. This is a good thing. I can think of a million things I'd rather do, but this is what I need to do. If anyone else in the workshop benefits, that's great, but I'm doing it because I need to do it.

"A Shout Out to the HNT Crowd"

2007-02-08T16:35:00.001-08:00

A couple weeks ago I celebrated my second AA birthday at a big Saturday night speaker meeting. The meeting is recorded and my plan was to get a CD and post my share here, so you all could have the benefit not only of my wise and inspiring words, but my resonant baritone, as well. I missed the next week's meeting and didn't get the CD, so, like almost all my plans the past two years, this one didn't pan out, either. I trust that, as with all my other foiled plans, it will work out just fine to type it. :)

It was a great birthday, by the way. A lot of my friends came to support me -- even my pastor showed up! My son was there, and so was my Qualifier -- er, estranged wife.

Here's roughly what I shared:

Phil, alcoholic. I'm grateful to be here tonight, grateful to be sober two years! (pause for wild cheering and applause)

You know, when the good oldtimers wrote in the Big Book that the alcoholic has a "spiritual malady," they were talking about me. Because I have a birth defect. I was born with a God-shaped hole in my soul.

Until I came to these rooms, it never occurred to me I might have this problem. Oh, I knew I had problems. I was besieged by problems. It seemed I was always out of work. My marriages kept collapsing. I was always buried in debt. Everything and everybody were my problems. Everything except alcohol -- everybody except me.

Today, my life is a lot simpler, and my problems look a lot smaller. Thanks to you guys and a few simple suggestions you gave me. The same simple suggestions the good oldtimers handed down to all of us. (gesture meaningfully at 12 steps poster)

You showed me a way to have a better life -- a good life -- a life I want to have.

You showed me a way to finally let go of my futile, endless attempt to fill up my hollow soul with beer.

You showed me a way to let God into my life -- a power outside of my own will, bigger than me, who loves me and meets me wherever I am -- a God who nourishes and enriches my spirit extravagantly.

Thank you for these gifts -- thank you so much!

Thanks especially to my brothers at Progress House -- you guys are awesome. My brothers and sisters at my Friday night group -- you're the lifeblood of my recovery. A shout out to the HNT crowd*. I love all of you.

God bless everyone here tonight -- God bless the millions in our fellowship -- and God bless the alcoholic who still suffers.

I'm an alcoholic, my name is Phil. Thanks for letting me share.

*Yes, I really did say that. It was my way of thanking all of you in this marvelous recovery community in blogtopia (whether you actually participate with naked pictures or not!) Who knows, maybe some of you were there. :)

Road Warrior

2007-02-06T20:04:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't have done a geographic to southern California if I wanted to be on Long Island in February.

This is my first business trip since getting sober. I was dreading it. I got so burned out on travel before. Getting up in the middle of the night, making my way to the airport, carrying heavy bags, going through security, the horrible air in the plane -- I was always completely frazzled by the time I got to my room, found a liquor store and started looking for strip clubs.

Well, the liquor store and strip club weren't on the agenda this time, but the rest was. And needless to say, by the time I reached my room I was... just fine, thank you! They must have done extensive customer service training at TSA. And they've improved the air on the planes a lot. The ordeal I anticipated was no sweat. I'm doing some work in my room, went to dinner with colleagues, and I'm prepared for the meeting tomorrow.

I'm really grateful they've been working so hard to make business travel less awful since I quit drinking.

It's a Wonderful Life, or, For Whom the Bell Tolls

2007-01-03T16:11:00.000-08:00

Did you hear a bell ring?

The famous old movie tells us that when a bell rings, another angel just got his wings.

Christmas is over, so it means something else: another drunk just got health benefits. :)

I got a job offer today, a good one, at the place I've been temping for 6 months. One year, almost to the minute, after I moved in to sober living.

This recovery thing works. Very slowly for some of us. But it works.

Routine Mendacity

2006-12-29T15:07:00.000-08:00

Have you ever told a lie so routinely, so continuously, for so long that you didn't even recognize the lie any more? No? Liar.

In the spirit of rigorous honesty, I have reset the little cigarette recovery timer in the upper right corner to zero.

No, it's not my only routine and continuous lie.

No, I'm not going to tell you about the rest of them. Unless you want to be my sponsor. And if you want to be my sponsor: no, I will not wash your car, give you rides, or lend you money.

I feel much better now. Thanks for letting me share.

Time for a smoke break.

Don't Be Afraid

2006-12-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's -- not easy days for this alcoholic. 'Tis the season for resentment, regret, self-pity, anxiety. And fear. Lots of fear. 'Tis the season for relapse.

Two years ago this week, between Christmas and New Year, I started my last relapse. Today, two of my best friends from sober living, both junkies, are barely hanging on, skittering toward homelessness and jail since they started getting loaded again after Thanksgiving. Scary stuff.

My son went with his mom out of town for Christmas, so I was by myself. Alone, broke, seeing the decorated houses and the ads on TV that demonstrate clearly that everyone else in the world is spending a joyful Christmas with extended family and giving each other expensive gifts. Me, I had wrapped up desperately needed new clothes for my son as his gifts, along with some cheap toys and books. This is not a Norman Rockwell painting. My material and family circumstances are no better, even worse in some ways, than last year and the year before.

And yet...

It felt different this year. Something really has changed. Slowly, inch by inch, recognizable only at mileposts like this and looking back a year or two, something has changed. Every day is a good day. Some days I have a bad attitude -- resentful, regretful, self-pitying, fearful. At some point in the last couple years, I've come to accept that the problem is not with the world, not even something wrong with me, but with what I think and feel about the world and myself.

One tangible difference this year is that I went to church on Christmas Eve. Going to church is part of my routine now, and there is nothing more natural than spending part of Christmas with my friends I worship with.

What I came away from the service with was what the angel said to the shepherds: “Don’t be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy." My fear melted away, my resentments and self-pity turned to gratitude. For Christians and non-Christians alike, there is no question that the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is good news of great joy. When we hear this good news, we can be, just for today, joyful and hopeful, without fear. I don't have to relapse today. I can let my thoughts and feelings get out of the way, and accept that today is a good day.

Why Drunks Love Halloween

2006-10-31T08:12:00.000-08:00

We wear masks so no one can see who we really are.
We walk right up to people and take goodies from them.
If we don't like someone, we egg their house.

(acknowledgemen to Greg W.)

Accountable

2006-10-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

I had to add a new counter in my profile. I can't keep smoking. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and cigarettes are keeping me sick and tired.

I've been fighting a sinus infection/bronchitis for over a month. I'm tired and dragged out all the time, and my brain is mushy. Sneezing, coughing, blowing my nose all the time. I can't shake it, I don't have the energy to find a job with more money so I can get my own place where my son can be with me, and pay an attorney to finally get divorced. I want to sell my truck to get some money, but first I have to get money to fix the driver side window that broke because I was opening and closing it constantly while smoking. So I have these obstacles to moving forward in my life, not to mention just plain feeling like crap. Cigarettes seem to be a significant factor in keeping these obstacles in front of me.

I'm not happy about this. I don't really want to quit smoking. It's not a good time to stop. After all, there hasn't been a good time to stop in the last 25 years, so there's no reason to think this is a good time to do it. I stopped for a couple days, and one day, over the past week, but went and got a new pack each time.

It's a lot like quitting drinking. Every excuse in the world, destroying my life, making me sick, wanting to, not wanting to, and the craving sets in and I'm a powerless slave to nicotine. The difference, for me, is that smoking has never wrapped itself around my soul and spirit like alcohol did. Smoking has, though, taken over my body and brain chemistry more thoroughly than alcohol did.

There's a Nicotine Anonymous group I think I'll try. My experience with smoking is similar enough to my drinking that I think it will help.

Holding myself accountable will also help, I think. That's why I put the counter in. You'll notice it's hours, not days -- hours, I'm afraid, are the time increments I can deal with. It puts my sobriety day counter in new perspective. At this point, I'm striding effortlessly across vast tracts of sobriety time, months racking up fast. I haven't forgotten my earliest days and hours of being sober, though, and cigarettes remind me of them. As they say: years come easy, but days come hard.

So the counter puts me out in public in front of my on-line recovery friends, and now I'm accountable to you for it. Am I grateful to you for this? Hell, no. I hate you all for it. ;)

Newcomer

2006-09-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

Not to worry, I'm not a newcomer to AA again -- the 590-odd days in that little counter thingy are still, by the grace of God, accurate. Ain't nuthin' gonna make me take a drink today. And, if I chose to worry about it today, ain't no way God will turn his back on me tomorrow.

I'm a newcomer to that other 12-step program -- the one for families and friends of alcoholics. I'm not real comfortable going into a lot of detail about my "Qualifier" (my favorite al-anon jargon so far), but let's just say I've become very concerned about my son's welfare and safety. My 4-year-old son was the victim of "playing doctor" with the 7-year-old girl (whose mom is an aging party-girl drunk, whose dad is not in the picture, you know the routine) who lives next door to my Qualifier, that crossed the line into sexual abuse. A couple weeks after finding this out, my Qualifier was too drunk one night to take care of my son. The light finally went on inside my (knuckle)head.

It's pretty easy to look at my Qualifier's drinking, compare it to my own, and say, "Phaw!! You call that drinking!?!?" My Qualifier seems to share my view -- when I raised the issue of her drinking, she offered well-thought-out reasons why this kind of drinking is not a problem, because it's not that kind of drinking. She clearly has given it some thought, and concluded everything is fine.

Oh, and she went ballistic, too.

So now I'm a newcomer in al-anon. It's real familiar in a lot of ways. It has resurrected the feelings I had as a newcomer in AA, but had forgotten: absolutely hating the fact I was where I needed to be. Not having a clue what these people are talking about. Wanting to gouge my eyes out rather than go to another fricking meeting. Really impatient that they aren't giving clear instructions. "Okay, yeah, I'm powerless over my Qualifier's drinking, let go and let God, got that... now, HOW DO I MAKE HER STOP!?!?"

The last few days I've started remembering how I got past it in AA. Surrender. God, I hate surrender...

One of these days I'll be making enough money to move out of sober living and have a place my son can stay with me. I'm astonished I've had to stay there so long, but walking through the consequences of my financial irresponsibility and checkered employment record has **ahem** delayed my prosperity. I'm getting there -- I'm in better shape than I was a few months ago, and employers seem to value that I now show up to work every day.

Patience is hard. My natural inclination is to do something dramatic and decisive to solve everything at once. My new friends in al-anon are wet blankets about this approach, just as much as my old party pooper friends in AA.

So I guess I'll just keep coming back and try not to do anything irretrievably stupid.

Startled

2006-04-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

I heard something startling at a meeting the other day. Now, this in itself is unusual. I've seen everything, heard everything, I know everything there is to know about alcoholism, AA and recovery. Because I'm an oldtimer. I've been in and around the rooms of AA for over 20... uh, months. So I know it all.

A speaker was riffing on Step One and the theme of powerlessness. He got sober at some inpatient program where they tried to provide a "toolkit" to the drunks so they could manage the urges and temptations to drink once they got out. He got out, went to AA, got a sponsor, and talked about the "toolkit" with his sponsor. His sponsor said, "Toolkit!?! There ain't no tools to stop drinking. You're powerless."

This pulled me up short. I have always thought in terms of the "tools" AA gives me, and from sharing I hear in meetings I'm not the only one.

[One thing I have learned is that if I hear something I disagree with, I ought to pay close attention.]

In a real sense, AA is an "anti-toolkit." I frequently walk in to a meeting with a head full of plans, schedules, agendas, expectations and other ridiculous fantasies about how I'm going to have better control of my life. I'll get a decent-paying job so I'm not going backwards financially, I'll be able to afford to move out of sober living, get divorced, get 50% custody of my son, ask that chick at the Thursday night meeting out on a date (you should see the, uh, RECOVERY this girl has, I mean she is soooo, uh, SOBER!), buy a condo, then buy investment properties, get rich, etc., etc., and never have another problem in my life. I got it all figured out. I just need a few more tools and then I'll control my destiny.

In the course of the meeting, or reading the Big Book or 12X12 or As Bill Sees It, I'll be reminded again that I'm not in charge, that God is in charge.

"Okay, Phil, put down the monkey-wrench."
"But, but, it took me so long to craft this monkey-wrench, just let me throw it into the works -- I have it all planned!"
"Put down the monkey-wrench and put your hands in the air. Palms up."

So, yes, we have a lot of "tools" in AA. We bring them to meetings with us, and throw them away with the cigarette butts and coffee cups.

The processes and activities we practice in AA are designed not so much to put tools in our hands, but to make us empty-handed -- so our hands are not cluttered with monkey-wrenches, not balled into fists, not under our behinds with our thumbs you-know-where. We can't build our sobriety, we can't fight for it, we can't earn it, we can't do anything to own sobriety. We hold out our empty hands and accept it, on a daily basis, as a gift from our Higher Power. (Next time you reach out to a newcomer, take a look at your hand.) We "practice these principles" not to build tools for living, but to strengthen our willingness to accept the free gift of life.

I sure don't own my sobriety. The "spiritual awakening" is not something I did once and now have with no further ado. At least a dozen times a day I have to shake myself awake once more, remind myself simply to accept God's will, that my part is to conform myself as best as I can to God's will even if I don't have a clue, and then to stop worrying.

CoDe Breaking

2006-02-28T20:50:00.000-08:00

I'll try to post this when I can pirate an unsecured wireless network.

There's been a lot of ups and downs since moving to LA two months ago. Still in sober living, and it's going okay. Some frustrations, primarily about lack of a quiet spot to read, write, blog, and just experience quiet. The guys are okay. For the most part, respectful, trying to get clean and sober, trying to get their lives together. There's a core group of about a dozen right now. At least half a dozen have come and gone, sometimes not even lasting a night. Most of these guys have had problems with the law, and most have addictions in addition to alcohol, the most common, and most awful, crystal meth.

We have kids that are still teenagers. I'm sort of "Uncle Phil" to one kid. I taught him how to do laundry. (!) The last guy in is 21, just out of jail, never been in recovery. His first day there, I gave him a Big Book and 12X12, and inscribed them with his name, the date, and a reference to the Promises. I figured, he may not last the night, and if he goes I want him to have them to take with him. He's made it a few days, so we shall see.

All in all, I benefit from the experience, strength and hope of my housemates, from the responsibility and accountability. Nevertheless, I'm ready to get my own place as soon as I can afford it! :)

----------------------------------------------------

I can't afford much of anything right now. I'm a temp. I got my first assignment the day after I registered, a 3-day gig that lasted 6 weeks. The client, a small business, talked about hiring me, wanted to tie my compensation to the growth of the business, which was cool with me. After a few weeks it was clear the office was so chaotic there was no way the business would grow. So I left. Unfortunately I'm still "on the beach" and sweating bullets about finances.

From a practical standpoint, leaving the assignment may have been a doubtful move. From a recovery standpoint I think it may have been a great step forward. I could have stayed, believing that I would go to work one day and everything would be completely different -- the owner would see the obvious, that his business was a catastrophe, and would support me in straightening it out. God knows I've spent my career doing just that. "Just that" being, believing in pretty stories against all evidence, and not believing what is right in front of my eyes.

The word I've heard used for this type of insanity is "codependent." About a year ago, in my first 90 days sober, I read a book about codependence. It was another "moment of clarity" in my journey -- it was as much a biography of me as the Big Book is. At this point, the issues of codependency have been bubbling to the surface rather naturally. Maybe it's partly from living in a sober house, watching guys relapse with regularity. I can't afford to relapse, so I can't afford to be anything but honest with myself, I can't afford to nurture self-pity or resentment. So I can't afford to buy into anyone else's bullshit, any more than I can my own. When I see someone relapse, or let his business go to the dogs, I have to choose not to go down with them, and recognize I can't "save" them. I have to recognize it's sad, and pray for them, and be thankful it's them and not me.

----------------------------------------------------

Needless to say, this codependency challenge is hardest for me when it comes to my wife. She's just as unpredictable as ever, flipping from reasonable and supportive to a hateful, spiteful, self-righteous liar, cheat and thief, in a few hours. I try to remember she's sick, and pray for her, but I'm not immune to the hurt she causes me, and the fear of damage she could do to my son and/or my relationship with him. I've found myself being less accomodating toward her, placating her a bit less.

Does my behaving differently have an effect on her behavior toward me? Not one little bit. Which just reinforces the truth of what AA teaches me: "Do the right thing and trust God." Or, as my church teaches: "Do all things as unto the Lord." I'm as powerless over the people and things around me as I am over alcohol. I can't change change or control my wife any more than I could change or control my drinking. If she chooses to play God in her own life, I can't do anything about it. My responsibility is not to let her crowd out God in my life.

Better her than me.

----------------------------------------------------

Saving the best for last: my son is doing fine. :)

I love seeing him just about every day, and he loves it, too. He keeps asking to come to Daddy's house. I can't bring him to where I live, so my "quality time" with him depends heavily on whether my wife despises me on any given day and will allow me to spend time with him at her place. So I'm VERY eager to be able to afford a place of my own!

Gratitude

2006-01-16T08:06:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful to be sober today. Just another day of sobriety, another daily reprieve from slavery to alcohol, is a miracle. I'm grateful to God for His mercy and grace in granting me this gift today.

By chance, by the steady cycle of earth's rotation, it happens that this is the 365th consecutive day of sobriety for me. So, today is my first AA birthday. :)

I pray that I will remain sober for the rest of today, and that tomorrow I will remember what I had to do today to stay sober. The rest will work out, according to God's design.

If anyone with fewer days of sobriety is wondering how to make it a year, the answer is simple: one day at a time!

Productive

2006-01-13T12:34:00.000-08:00

Thank you, everyone, for all your kind words of encouragement! It really helps a lot. :)

Things are not bad at all. I am actually posting this from work -- yes, that's right, work! I resgistered with an agency Monday and started a gig Tuesday. And they keep wanting me to come back. It's not a huge amount of money, and I'm a temp, but it feels good to be productive and valued by an employer. It's remarkable how different it is to go to work in the morning without a hangover, and without having to drink oceans of coffee both to keep myself awake and to cover my stale beer breath.

My living situation is going fine, too. I actually like it more than I anticipated I would. I figured, just knowing how I am, that I would spend the first couple weeks absolutely hating it and kicking myself for doing it, then settle in a bit and accept it. But I've found I do accept it, and I'm benefiting from my brothers in the house. If I stay 2 or 3 months, I'll probably leave with 2 or 3 lifelong friends. It's inconvenient, I find myself resenting rushing from work to spend a few minutes with my son, and rushing to the house to make my curfew. Then do my silly chores, vacuuming a clean rug and windexing a spotless glass table. So, obviously, it's good that I'm living there. :)

Last night I did the rushing around, a bottle of bleach leaked in my truck, and my son was utterly blase about seeing me. I mentioned the bleach to a guy at the house, and he pointed out I should be grateful to have a truck. He was right, of course, and I agreed, and added that I'm grateful for bleach, too.

Today I realized I felt hurt that my son has been blase and matter-of-fact when he sees me the past few days. I'm accustomed to him being excited and thrilled to see me. Well, since he would go a week or two without seeing me, of course he was excited. Now he sees me every day, and it's part of his daily routine. And that's why I'm here -- to see him every day and be a part of his routine. So why should I feel bad that he responds to it as a routine thing? :)

I really do have a lot to be grateful for, and I'm aware of the countless blessings God has given me. Every day, it seems I'm a little more happy, joyous and free than I was the day before. Can it get any better than that???

Bless you all, my friends! I'll post again when I can.

Sober Living Like a Drunk

2006-01-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

I'm actually writing this at my wife's place. She's been reasonably okay with me being around and doing some stuff at her place.

It's great seeing my son every day. He keeps asking to go to my house -- he doesn't quite understand I don't live there any more.

So, I'm at sober living. It's pretty grim. It's clean, the guys are okay (with one exception), but it's old and worn out, and crowded. I HATE having to be in at a certain time, there isn't much to do. There's three TV rooms, but no quiet, decently-lit place to read. So I go to bed early and get started early.

My priorities are to get a job and sell my truck. I got my resume together, but I can't find my contact names, addresses and numbers to save my life. Or my truck title. They're somewhere in storage. And storage is a freaking disaster.

I hate living like a drunk. Almost a year sober and I'm still living like a drunk. Just moving to LA has given me a lot of clarity where I am in recovery. Step Six. I'm trying to be willing to let God remove these character defects I have nurtured and cherished for so many decades. And humility to ask God in Step Seven. Willingness for six; humility for seven.

I don't WANT to be in sober living; but I want to want being there.

I can't bring my son there. Well, I can, but I won't. The first night I was there, one of the guys was talking about what another guy said to his fiancee: "What would you think if I stole a pair of your panties, and a pair of your 4-year-old daughter's, and mailed them back to you anonymously?" That's all I needed to hear: my son is going nowhere near there!

Well, back to job-hunting. I'll post again when I have a chance.

Amateur Night

2005-12-29T22:16:00.000-08:00

(I know, I know, I promised I was leaving for awhile, but I have to drive a second load to LA tomorrow, and my phone still works. Deal with it.)

My big plan for New Year's is to watch Mickey Mouse cartoons with my son.

The first few years I was drinking I did it up big for New Year's. And other days like St. Patrick's Day. Most other days, too, come to think of it...

Once I became an isolated, at-home drunk, New Year's was no big deal. In sobriety, I haven't got much use for an occasion used by normies as an excuse to get drunk. Been there, done that.

Even when I was drinking, I avoided driving on New Year's Eve. Too many people driving drunk who have no expertise at it. Amateur night. A normie behind the wheel with a .79% scares the bejabbers out of me.

These people think that they can be too drunk to focus their eyes, then get in a car and drive?? They can't!! Because they don't know that in order to do that, you have to close one eye! You can't just get in the car drunk on New Year's Eve and know how to do it. It takes practice. It's best to do it a few dozen times on sunny afternoons, to get the hang of it. Only then try it at night. Even then, New Year's is not the night to try it the first time -- it should only be attempted after many hundreds of ordinary nights driving blind drunk. Preferably you should have several experiences coming out of blackouts while driving

Amateurs.

What Were You Doing A Year Ago?

2005-12-28T15:55:00.000-08:00

Here's what I was up to.

What I've learned in the past year is this: a day without a relapse is better than a day with a relapse. :)

I'm packing my apartment today. I'm loading up the truck and taking everything to LA tomorrow. I'll put it in storage. I'll spend a couple days with my son at my wife's apartment, while she's out of town for New Year's. I'll move in to a sober living house on Tuesday, five minutes away from my son. :)

This is going to be a big change for me. I felt anxious, and a little panicky, and some dread, as soon as I wrote the check and committed to moving there. It was actually very similar to the feelings I had when I first started AA. "Oh, my God, I'm going to have to change everything, give up everything about myself, and I don't really want to do it." I never even had a roommate in college. I've always been free to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with no one to say otherwise. This house has rules, curfews, and I'll be living cheek by jowl with a dozen other guys, sharing a kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, closets. Six months sobriety are required, so we don't have the deer-in-the-headlights newcomers, and there's regular testing, so there should be a minimum of sneaking out.

Nevertheless, what I'm facing is responsibility, structure, discipline and accountability, plus getting along with a bunch of people as whacked out as I am. These are the reasons I'm going into a sober living house. These are also the reasons I'm dreading it and anxious about it. :) It seems a bit like joining the army. Or going to prison. Or something.

The house doesn't have internet, so my posting in the next few months is likely to be rather rare, unfortunately. I will be thinking about and praying for all of you, even if I'm not posting regularly. Please pray that God grants me courage, and a willing heart, to accept this blessing and take my next steps in recovery!

Adolescence

2005-12-13T15:05:00.000-08:00

I identified with Kenny's post about loneliness. Sometimes I get that old feeling, that I'm alone in an alien world. It came over me briefly last night, alone at McDonalds having a cup of coffee. The urge to flee, run away, somewhere, anywhere, to hide. I'm grateful I don't get that panicky despair very often any more, and that I've been given some tools to handle it. Last night the tools that came to hand were being responsible for the second thought I have, along with good old Rule 62.

I had just left my wife and son at her apartment. I drove them to LA, after she came back the previous day from surgery in Mexico. I was so happy to see my son's delight in being with his mommy, at his "usual" home, playing with the little girl next door he adores, after almost three weeks apart from these people and things he loves so much. At the same time, I had spent 24 hours with my wife so I was ready to strangle her, and I was going to go back home alone after being with my son for those three weeks, so I was already missing him.

I was taking my new sponsor's suggestion by checking bulletin boards at a couple Alano clubs to see if anyone in the Fellowship was seeking a roommate or tenant. I stopped for a cup of coffee, just to settle and center a bit. And I briefly had this view that my life is ridiculous and insane. But before long, I was sort of smiling to myself, yeah, it is pretty nuts in a lot of ways, but it's the life I have and I'm actually starting to enjoy it. Then I got up, went to the Alano club and caught a meeting.

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The meeting turned out to be a small men's cross-talk, discussing problems on people's minds. I didn't share -- I didn't know anyone and I was still feeling a little "alien." I was grateful that my problems seem so small compared to the ones others face. At the same time, I felt at a loss to offer anything that would help.

The day before, my book study meeting was chapter seven, Working with Others, a manual for how to twelfth-step a prospect. It felt like a Plato dialogue, the self-assured confident twelfth-stepper, knowing exactly where he's going, leading the poor schlepp of a prospect into the light through structured conversation. This twelfth-stepper is willing to jeopardize his family, bring a drunk into his home to smash the furniture and burn the beds, in his commitment to carry the message. I realized, this is beyond my grasp, I can't make sense of this yet. I readily identified with the prospect, but the twelfth-stepper is in a different league.

At the same time, my response was neither, "There must be something terribly wrong with me," nor "The book is bullshit." It was simply, "I don't get it." Maybe in time I will, as so much of the book has become clear gradually.

This stuff makes me think I'm in something like the "adolescence" of recovery. I'm no longer a baby in the program, I'm not the same man I was a year ago. But my recovery is not yet mature -- there is much more to be revealed. I like that, actually. I love the changes I've experienced so far, and the prospect of more to come is exhilirating.

I want it all. I want everything life has to offer me. I want every blessing God wants me to have.

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A few days ago Dryblog posted a link to a site of California recovery resources. With a couple clicks, I was looking at the page of an organization that runs sober living houses and apartments in the part of LA I'm moving to. Last night at the Alano club, the director's card was on the bulletin board. Hmmmm... Any thoughts?

Compliance, Surrender and Flatulence

2005-12-09T16:58:00.000-08:00

Philosopher, in a comment on Redhead Gal's blog, made a distinction between surrender to a Higher Power and compliance with a Higher Power that was helpful to me. Rusty expressed some of what I've been thinking lately: I'm coming close to a year sober, and I really suck at AA. I don't call my sponsor every day, I've been unreliable in commitments, I've let 3-4 weeks pass between meetings sometimes. I've done the steps, but far from thoroughly. For me, it shows how powerless I really am, that my recovery has very little to do with my efforts, and is an undeserved gift from God.

Surrender is not compliance. We don't call them the Twelve Commandments. They aren't the Twelve Agenda Items. They aren't the Twelve Standards of Compliance promulgated by the Alcoholics Anonymous Recovery Standards Board. Sobriety is not something that can be "accomplished," in my opinion, and it does not require adhering to any onerous, kill-joy, identity-destroying precepts.

For me, surrender is a willingness to try to conform my will to God's will, as best as I can. For me, obedience to God's will is precisely identical to accepting God's gifts. So, surrender is a desire to accept the gifts and blessings God wants to give us. How hard is that, really? :)

God doesn't hate me for the many times I fail to accept His gifts. He isn't going to condemn me to hopeless drunkenness if I don't call my sponsor today. I will condemn myself to misery, possibly including drunkenness, if I choose to tell God, "No, thanks, I'm turning down the gifts you offer me, because they are different from what I expected and requested from You."

Compliance is not our purpose or our goal. In itself, compliance gives us nothing. Freedom and happiness is what we seek. Surrender is the method we use to approach the freedom and happiness God wants to give us. Rough compliance with the suggestions of AA, with Biblical commandments, with the eight-fold path, with our conscience, with whatever, is a byproduct, an indirect indicator, sometimes a guidepost, of surrender to our Higher Power.

To me, at least. :)

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I think my son has had too much time with his Papi, without Mommy around. Last night we were in the car. He farted loudly, and then laughed uproariously. It's a good thing his mother is coming back Sunday, before he starts eating road kill.

Lordy, has it been THAT long!?

2005-12-08T12:51:00.000-08:00

I knew it had been awhile, but I didn't realize it was almost three months! Here's a quick rundown:

See that day counter in the sidebar? It's still accurate, by the grace and mercy of God. One of the things that keeps me sober is that I know I would have to go back and reprogram that damn thing if I got drunk.
I'm moving to LA. I gave notice on my apartment, I'm looking for a home for my cats, and I'm looking for a room to rent for awhile until I get myself going. That's right, I don't have a place to live yet and I don't have a job, but I'm going. (A lot of people in California do this sort of thing, even those loosely called "normal.") I do, however, have a sponsor and a church. First things first. :)
I patched things up with my old sponsor. I haven't even asked him yet what happened with that woman. We've made our mutual amends and put it behind us. My son is thrilled -- he really missed "Uncum Bill." :)
My son is doing great! He can write his name -- at age 3 years 4 months. :) At the moment he's furious with me because I can't defy the laws of physics so he can play with his balloon the way he wants. And because I didn't give him candy for lunch.
My estranged wife has had serious health problems. Gall bladder, pancreas, kidneys and liver all involved. She went to Mexico City for surgery (it's impossible to find decent health care in LA, you know) and our son has been with me. She's recovering well and doing much better, and is returning to the US in a few days. She's still a very strange lady, but I am grateful she is a loving, devoted and commited mother to our son.
Don't get me started about my apartment manager. In my daily prayers, I had to add, "Lord, please grant blessings, happiness, prosperity and good health to that fucking nazi bitch."
My mom had a total knee replacement -- she had her other one done a couple years ago -- and she is recovering remarkably well.

An "attitude of gratitude" is gradually becoming a consistent, natural outlook on my life. God has to whup me upside the head with a two-by-four now and then, just to get my attention, but I'm even learning to be thankful for what He is telling me when He does it! I am blessed with so much, so far beyond anything I deserve or could ever earn -- and that would have remained utterly beyond my grasp without the central blessing of sobriety.

God bless each of you. I love you all! I count each of my blog friends as a blessing, though I don't always express it and share my gratitude consistently. It's truly a miracle that I have been granted over 300 days of continuous sobriety -- and you have been instruments of God's grace in performing that miracle! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

47 Years Looking for the Quick Fix

2005-09-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

I've been a little shaken this week. The falling-out with my sponsor shook me up. He had become a good friend over the past year, and I may have lost the friendship, along with the disillusionment as a sponsor.

I feel vulnerable and at-risk without a sponsor. I know I need to get a new sponsor, and I know four or five guys I'm thinking of approaching. I recognize that if it doesn't work out, I just get someone else, no big deal. But a part of me still is the Rugged Individualist, wanting to do it all myself, I don't need or want a sponsor. And I don't trust my own judgment now, and fearful I'll ask the "wrong" person.

This "shaken" feeling has been reinforced by seeing my own character defects in my sponsor. The same hubris, cockiness, and blindness to my own shortcomings, that I was particularly aiming at my wife.

And just in case that wasn't enough, my meeting with my shrink laid it out quite plainly. I went there looking for answers to my son's situation -- let's face it, I wanted ammo to get my way. Instead, the session ended up highlighting what my responsibilities are as a father, many of which I've been faking, making excuses, taking shortcuts. Nothing earthshaking, nothing that isn't as plain as the nose on my face: I have no control over my wife or what she does with my son. I am not in sole control of his schedule. When my son is with me, he needs me to be consistent aqnd patient. His behavior will respond to mine. If I want him to pick up his toys, I have to pick up my own toys. No strategic weapons for total victory here. Very simply: Phil, you know what you have to do, so do it!

And you know what bugs me the most? That I can recognize these attitudes and my behavior (more accurately procrastination) as the same traps I've always fallen into. If I don't have assurance that everything will be perfect, completely under my control, then I try to avoid it altogether.

I know what it takes. "A day at a time" means I have a responsibility to others, to God, and above all to myself to make the most of today. I know now that epochal, radical alteration of my life does not happen in an afternoon. I've spent 47 years looking for the quick fix. It's still easy for me to be impatient and discouraged. I haven't yet internalized that incremental effort and incremental change add up to big things.

So, all in all, I guess, this week has been a gentle nudge for me from HP. I've been a bit slack in putting recovery into practice in my life every day. It's not that I seem to be in immediate danger of deciding to get drunk today. It's more that I feel kind of fuzzy around the edges. It's hard for me to concentrate enough to write this, to identify and articulate feelings and thoughts. Not sharp, not focused -- kind of fuzzy.

I'm truly grateful for the experience, strength and hope I find in others' blogs. For instance, just in the past few days, Pepa, Scott, Blue, Dave, Trudge, and Lash have said things that expressed my own thoughts and feelings, so much better than I can myself. And this is just a sample, I could point to many others. I'm truly grateful, too, for the remarkable joy, pain, courage and growth of some bloggers in their first days of recovery, such as Steph, Grace, and Jane. Their journeys inspire me, and remind me how much I want, and believe I can have, the continuous renewal that a spiritually-centered recovery offers. The journeys of the "oldtimers" show me the result of that continuous renewal, and the good life that I want, and that I believe I can have.

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Heard at last night's meeting: "Recovery is not for those who want it, nor for those who need it. It's for those who work it."

If You Get It, You're Alcoholic

2005-09-18T17:07:00.000-07:00

An alcoholic wakes up in any empty room with two doors. One door is marked "?" and the other is marked "Recovery". He opens the door with the "?" and enters. Inside is a gorilla with a baseball bat. The gorilla beats him to a pulp.

When the alcoholic comes to, he is in the same room, with the same two doors. He again chooses the door marked "?" and goes in. Again, the gorilla is there with the baseball bat, and again the gorilla beats the shit out of the alcoholic.

The alcoholic regains consciousness again, in the same room with same two doors, marked "?" and "Recovery." He once more chooses the door marked "?" -- and the room is empty! The alcoholic says, "Hey!! Where's the gorilla??"

Is It Just Me?

2005-09-13T15:49:00.000-07:00

Or is anyone else getting a blank screen when you pull up JJ's and Jane's blogs??

If it was just JJ's, I'd figure, well, the Blogger cops finally caught up with her and shut her down. But Jane seems a reasonably solid blog citizen...

UPDATE: JJ's seems to be back now...

UPDATE: Both JJ and Jane are back, even particle got his service straightened out. Earth is back on its axis. :)

Putting One Over

2005-09-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

One of my major personality defects is a habit of faking it. It seems to be a specific form of dishonesty and egotism.

I don't have to do the footwork. I can find the shortcut. I can find the loophole. I'm smarter and more clever than everyone else, so I don't have to waste my time and energy making an honest effort. I can bluff my way through, skate around obstacles, weave a whole reality out of rationalizations, excuses, plausible half-truths and misdirection. I can put one over on just about anyone, and they'll never know it. The rules simply don't apply to me. I got it goin' on, and I'm bulletproof. Doing the right thing when no one's looking is for suckers. Doing the right thing when someone IS looking shows lack of initiative and resourcefulness.

What makes this a particularly insidious form of dishonesty and egotism is that the person who most firmly buys into the lies, and believes this flimsy, insane contraption is "reality," is me. I put one over on myself, the rest just flows so naturally and easily, I'm off in an alternate universe, and reality becomes invisible to me.

I thank my sponsor for holding this mirror up to my face, to show me so clearly what is often very difficult to see in myself. It's the last thing he's done for me as my sponsor; I hope not the last thing as a friend.

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I've had a falling-out with my sponsor. I broke what I think of as Rule Two of sponsorship: I loaned him money. I knew, when he asked me, it was a bad idea. I knew I couldn't count the times I've read and heard that sponsors should not borrow money from sponsees; never once has anyone suggested sometimes it's a good idea.

But I loaned him money. Because I'm not like everyone else. This is different. I'm unique. The rules don't apply to me.

He wanted to borrow money -- a not insignificant amount -- because he had moving expenses, had to register and insure his car, and he had plenty of money, but he just wanted to make sure he wouldn't be caught short. Just for a couple weeks, a cash flow timing thing.

I knew he was caught up in the thing with his imaginary girlfriend. So, being wise and rational, I loaned him the money, on condition that he not send money to her before she actually shows up to visit him. He said, oh, of course not, I'm not going to send her money. Fine, cool, that showed he recognized it could be a scam, he was being careful, and wasn't going to do anything stupid. So I gave him the money.

A few days later he sent her several hundred dollars.

I was furious, and I told him so. I demanded my money back immediately. (Which I got today, thank God.) He cannot understand why I'm upset. "It wasn't the money you gave me. I used different money. The money you gave me is still in the bank." I said, just because you put the money I gave you in your right-hand pocket, and pulled money from your left-hand pocket and gave it to her, doesn't mean you've gotten around the conditions of my loan. If you're in a position to borrow money from me, you're not in a position to send money to Russia. But this made no sense to him. He is sure he found a loophole in the plain meaning of the conditions of the loan.

When I saw him today, and got my money, I just wished him luck. I told him, point-blank, his girlfriend is imaginary, and that she hasn't stopped emailing him because she's going to try to get more money from him. She's allegedly on the train, on her way to get the plane to the US, and will arrive Friday.

Here's what I did NOT say to him, because I don't want to regret it later:

You're sure that in a week, you'll be in your new place with her, with this Pet of the Year who is crazy about you. She's going to stay and your life will be fabulous. You got it goin' on -- you must, for this to happen to you because of a few dozen emails you sent her.

If your girlfriend is real, and everything has been on the level, she's likely to be royally pissed you haven't told her about your past, your situation, and your alcoholism. You've been frantically running around to find a place and move out of your sober-living apartment before she arrives, get your license reinstated before she arrives. Are you planning to leak out the truth in small doses? Or keep putting it over on her indefinitely? Since you got it goin' on, you think you can control it, you can control the image she has of you so she'll stay crazy about you.

You will, however, I can practically guarantee, find yourself a week from now all alone in your new place, broken-hearted, and finally sinking in that one has been put over on YOU. That you ignored reality because you wanted the fantasy so much. And in your new place, unlike where you've lived since you got sober, there are no external constraints on alcohol. You've gotten used to the idea you've got it goin' on, that you can hedge the truth, that you're in control. It's real easy to decide you can get drunk tonight, just once, to kill the pain, and no one will know, you don't have to tell anyone, no one in AA will know. No consequences! You can get away with it, you can put it over. The next day, you can figure, what the hell, that worked out fine, you can do it one more time tonight. And you'll be off and running.

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I'm not different from him. How many times has it crossed my mind that I can get away with drinking, that no one will know? At some point, something shifted -- it was just me and HP, and HP showed me that I would know, and I didn't want to lie to myself. I'm accountable to myself and HP. And I can count on HP to give me whatever I need to look myself in the eye each night, and account for my sobriety that day. If I ever start thinking I got it goin' on, that I can put one over on myself and HP, my sobriety will be in deep trouble.

In my last post I wrote about my struggles with my wife and issues about taking care of our son. This episode with my sponsor has helped me recognize how this character defect is affecting how I'm handling it. I'm sure I'm a better caregiver than my wife: I got it goin' on. I'm keeping records, and I can use the information strategically, releasing it at times and in amounts that are advantageous to me my son's wellbeing: I can put one over, I'm in control.

Well, I printed out my record of the time I've spent with our son since December. I gave it to my wife and told her, I'm not trying to put one over on you, I want us to be talking about the same information, for our son's benefit.

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I'm learning that when I find myself in a jam, it's usually because of some combination of egotism/lack of humility; dishonesty; and/or insufficient trust in God. I want to be able to look myself in the eye, and be accountable to myself and HP, in every aspect of my life, not just about drinking.

Where's the Balance Point?

2005-09-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

My problems seem very small right now. I try to remember to be grateful that I am so blessed to have the problems and worries and concerns I have. From the perspective of my own life, a year ago I never could have expected to have these problems today. From the perspective of over 100,000 people living in shelters, dazed, shocked and displaced by a monster hurricane, my problems are very small indeed.

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How do I find the balance point between self-will and doing the next right thing? What do I do when what I see as the right thing to do brings me into conflict with someone else?

I'm worried about my son. He has no stability, no regular schedule. He's showing signs of defiance, disobedience, throwing toys. Is it just a part of turning three? I don't know. Yesterday I left a message with my shrink, that I want to talk to him, and get a referral to a child psychology specialist I can discuss it with. I have already suggested to my wife that she consider having our son live with me.

Two months ago, at the beginning of July, when my wife decided she didn't want me coming to LA on weekends to be with her and my son, we agreed that he would live with her, and he would spend two of every three weekends with me. So, he would be with me 4 of every 21 nights.

Since then, my son has been with me half the time. Which is fine, I'm happy and grateful for every moment I'm with him. The problem is that it hasn't been planned. One time he was with me for a week after my wife left him with friends overnight in my town. She was visiting them on Sunday, had to drive back to LA, my son was sick, so she left him there. She called me Sunday night after I was asleep and left a message "call me right away," with no information. I talked to her Monday morning and she told me what had happened. "If you want to pick him up, fine, otherwise I'll come and get him Tuesday or Wednesday." I, of course, went and picked him up immediately, and he was with me a week. (Need I add that one of the friends she left him with is an active alcoholic?)

Last week she left another "call me" message, weeping and wailing. I figured her elderly aunt had died. When I talked to her, no, she had just cycled to a bipolar depressive phase: she had crashed. She couldn't go to work, couldn't get out of bed, couldn't take care of our son. I drove to LA that day and picked him up, and he was with me for five days, until yesterday.

I suggested to her on the phone that she needs to consider having our son live with me. That, of course, was greeted with self-righteous anger, excuses, and accusations.

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I'm very angry with her, incredulous at her unwillingness and/or inability to provide stability and consistency for our son. I'm seeing alarming signs in his behavior; I will be working soon and unable to drop everything and take care of him -- I need to arrange day care for him when he's with me, and that requires a consistent and predictable schedule.

I honestly don't think she wants to be a mom. I think our son is a burden to her and gets in the way of what she wants to do. I think what she cherishes is the image of herself as a mother -- particularly the image of "poor single mom, doing the impossible, with an estranged alcoholic husband."

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It breaks my heart. I'm not even 8 months sober, and my life is no paragon of stability and maturity. And yet it seems my poor son would find more stability, attention, stimulation and affection from me than from his mother.

Where's the balance point? Where does my own self-will leave off, and doing the next right thing for my son begin? What do I do next?

First, I'm going to talk to my shrink and to a child psychologist.
Second, I'm going to start saying "NO" to my wife -- I'm not going to be "flexible" about my son's schedule, I'm going to be rigid. She insists on being the primary caregiver, well, let her deliver it. I'm not going to bail her out any more.
Third, I'm going to meet with an attorney. It seems clear that there will not be a reconciliation, so I'm going to see what I need to do now, and in coming weeks and months, to strengthen the legal protection for my son's best interests.

I won't do anything drastic or irrevocable today. I'll gather information and advice. I'll call my son tonight, tell him I love him, and sing songs with him.

I Don't Like the Numbers

2005-09-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

The number evacuated, the number who stayed behind, the number leaving the Helldome, convention center and airport, the number picked up off rooftops, etc... There just aren't enough people who got out. The NOLA Missing Persons thread is over 20,000 posts. I'm dreading the next few weeks.

We Can Save a Life TODAY!

2005-09-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

We in AA take "One Day at a Time."

For the people still stranded in New Orleans, there may be no tomorrow.

I have watched on TV, as I'm sure you have, the heroic efforts of rescue personnel to save lives. I have heard them speak of the "golden 72 hours," when chances of survival are good.

The 72 hours have passed.

Despite all that is being done, more needs to be done. TODAY.

"Grant me the courage to change the things I can."

One thing I can change, by doing the right thing today, is give rescuers more resources right now. I have contributed to Lutheran Disaster Response, and I invite you to join me.

This organization has a record of providing food, water, shelter and medical care to the victims of disaster. I am grateful to have the opportunity to help them with their work -- TODAY!

half nAAked thursday

2005-09-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

I can do it myself, Papi!

Blogs for Katrina Relief 09/01/2005

2005-08-31T13:01:00.000-07:00

I am inviting all my fellow Bloggers to join me in Blogging for Donations for Hurricane Katrina Relief.

Click here to find out more.

[Hurricane Katrina] [Flood Aid]

I'm More Fun Than Disneyland!

2005-08-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

I've been a little whacked out lately. I take Zoloft for depression. (Or, more accurately, sertralina, which is the same stuff, except in Mexico I get it over the counter at a fraction of the cost.) I went off it for a couple months when I first got sober this year, at my shrink's suggestion, and was a complete wreck. So I went back on it, with breathtaking results.

So anyway. The last few weeks I was starting to run out of the pills, didn't feel like making a run across the border, so I started skipping days here and there, to stretch out the supply. Then last week, I suddenly asked myself why I've been feeling so lousy lately. Well, duh. I went and got my supply, got back on my daily dosage, and I'm already feeling better. I know it was a problem because I get some funky side effects as the seratonin level builds back up in my brain.

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My poor son got some brunt of both the depression/anxiety hanging on and the side effects of insomnia and its consequent irritability. So I was a little impatient with him this weekend, and not energetic enough to keep him from being bored. To be fair to myself, I have to admit he brought his own behavioral characteristics into the picture. Such as, getting into everything he can reach and attempting to get into everything he can't reach. Then, when I tell him not to, he grins at me and continues doing it. Repeatedly. Or, saying, "want cookie!!" continuously for 20 minutes. I lost my temper with him a few times.

We had fun, anyway. One of the things he likes best now is this little trick: I lay on my back with my knees up. He leans against my knees and grabs my hands. The I lift him up with my legs, so he's straight upside-down above me, then I grab him under the arms and flip him down to the floor on his back over my head. He loves it! I'm more fun than Disneyland!

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I'm worried about my sponsor. He's a terrific guy, one of the best friends I've ever had, and he's been a great sponsor, helping me through some pretty rough spots. He's been particularly beneficial helping me explore my spirituality.

This is his situation: he had eight years of sobriety, after getting clean and sober in prison. Then he relapsed for 18 months before coming back in. He has been very serious and focused in his sobriety, and has 30 months this time around. He did rehab, then a group recovery home, and now is in sober living apartments. His deadline to move out is coming up in the next couple months. He had lost his license, he's gone through all the hoops to get it back, and now is just waiting for the state to process paperwork. So, things are coming together for him: ready to move out, and live and drive among the Earth People. It's a tremendous accomplishment for him, and I respect him a lot. On paper, this guy is a lost soul; in life, he's an inspiration, and a nice guy with a great sense of humor, besides.

He started playing around with online matchmaking sites. That's cool, he's avoided dating until he felt ready, and now he's ready to move, ready to drive, so why not ready to date? And I met my wife via AOL, so I have nothing against meeting people online.

Here's why I'm worried: he's smitten with a girl in Russia. I should say, alleged girl. He's been corresponding with her for maybe two months, and she says she coming to visit him, at her own expense, in two weeks, and staying for a month. She says she's a gynecologist in a town outside Moscow. She sends a lot of pictures, and she is absolutely gorgeous. A lot of the pictures are clearly professional.

Let's assume, for the moment, that this is completely on the level, and she somehow navigates the thicket of DHS and State to get a tourist visa in time to turn up here in two weeks. My sponsor's plan is, at that point, to explain to her he's a recovering alcoholic, can't drive, and she can't stay with him at the sober living apartment he lives in. I made a comment to him about keeping a lot of secrets from her, but he responded that this plan would work fine. It bothers me a lot that he's ready to dive into this relationship, but is unwilling to practice "rigorous honesty" at the outset.

On the other hand, let's assume the obvious: this thing is a scam. He's convinced himself it isn't. He believes it's legit because she says she's ready to pay her own way, and she reports all these things she's doing to get her visa. So, in the next few days, when she reports, say, an obstacle that requires him to wire her $1000, he's going to do it. Even though I, and everyone else he's told about it, has told him, don't send her any money -- if you want to help her pay for her ticket, give it to her when she's here. Maybe I'm just too cynical, but I think he's going to end up taken for money he can ill afford to throw away; and, even worse, he's going to have his heart broken.

And all of this makes it hard to focus on my steps with him...

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I've been goofing around with my template. I haven't gotten into web site stuff this much since I did a site for a Playboy cover model. (It seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do when I was drinking... Sweet girl. But she kept gaining weight and using worse and worse photographers...) Is anyone having funky stuff happen with the reader survey? How about links to other blogs? I tested it all with IE6, Netscape7.2 and Firefox1.06 and it seemed to work okay. The only problem I found was that IE blows out sometimes if I do a mouseover before all the jpg's load -- I'm trying to find a solution for that. If you had problems, other than that, more than two days ago or so, it's probably fixed -- I had to do several quick template republications when bugs cropped up, and I apologize if one of the bugs caught you, or if I blew you out with a republish.

So, please let me know if my "improvements" are still causing problems for you. :)

Blog Site Development

2005-08-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

My blog site development is going really well. Here is my latest version.

Maybe it's time to quit procrastinating and go to the laundromat...

As a Concerned Parent...

2005-08-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

I want to draw your attention to a scandal of Alaskan proportions. I was horrified to read of a Sunday School teacher tormenting preschoolers with terrifying visions of death. I can only be thankful my own toddler has not been subjected to such a monstrous ordeal.

Around the Blogs in 80 Seconds

2005-08-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

I've seen some very cool stuff the past week or so in the blogosphere: thought-provoking, gut-wrenching, inspiring and funny. I've wanted to respond, but haven't had many chunks of time to do more than cursory reading.

My son has been with me all week, and he's had a bad cold, making him pretty cranky, short-tempered and bored, and needing a lot of attention. He's feeling much better today, and I'm taking him to LA to his mom's tomorrow.

For the moment, I want to highlight a couple things:

Welcome to Rusty! Dryblog promoted her blog the other day. She has a great-looking site and has a lot of good things to say about her first 5 months of sobriety.

Logan is trying to get an online meeting site going. He's moving to the sticks and has limited choices for real-world meetings. Anyone know of any other online meeting resources to recommend to him?

I hope to clutter a bunch of blogs with my comments in the next couple days, and probably call out a couple here on my blog. In the meantime -- happy trudging to AAers, happy beast-taming or whatever the hell you AVRTers do, happy seeking to those still drinking/using (you can find a way to stop), and happy living to those blessed with addiction-free lives.

Gratitude: 200-Some Days

2005-08-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

Scott wrote this in his blog entry for this "tag" thingy that's been going around:

1 Year Ago: 269 days of sobriety. Not working. Just enjoying being sober. Working the steps. Here is my gratitude list from that day:
08.14.04

For 269 days of getting more than I expected
...
To, day after day, sit with those whose greatest wish is that we all succeed

That everyone who comes into the rooms makes us stronger

That hope, given enough respect, becomes a comfortable reality

To improve on not judging by appearance

For those stronger than me who let me hold their hand

That when I am not thinking of God I need not worry because God is always thinking of me

For growing pains

Wow! I'm a big fan of Scott's gratitude lists, and this one really resonated. A year ago, Scott had 50 or so more days of sobriety than I do now. This list articulates, better than I can, a lot of things I am grateful for today.

A year later, you can see so much more depth and richness in Scott's daily gratitude lists -- reflecting, I think, the depth and richness of his program, his sobriety and his life. I daresay he seems less surprised by his sobriety today, he enjoys his life thoroughly today, and the little undercurrent of fear I detect in this list is completely absent today.

It gives me hope and optimism to see so much of myself in where Scott was just a year ago. He's one of the guys who has what I want. It inspires me to recommit myself, once again, to sobriety, surrender, faith in my Higher Power, humility, service and responsibility, so that my life may be as rich and happy as Scott's is today.

I've Been Tagged!

2005-08-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Logan got tagged, now he's tagged me. Here's my first go-round -- I may add more or modify it later.

10 Years Ago Today:

I was a consultant, based in Chicago. My client was in Honolulu. For six months my schedule was, roughly, ten days in Chicago, ten days in Honolulu. Got to the point I was the only one on the plane dreading going to Hawaii. I was in a zone beyond jet lag. Needless to say, I was drinking far too much to appreciate paradise!

Five Years Ago:

Married almost two years, this was a period when I wasn’t drinking so much, but it was starting to accelerate again. Marriage was in a rut, work was in a rut, but I was hopeful both would get better. They didn’t.

1 Year Ago:

One year ago today, I relapsed. I had gone to my first AA meeting two weeks earlier and stopped drinking. I had to have another 3-week fling with my old lover, Miller Genuine Draft, before saying goodbye forever. “Forever” lasted until December, when I relapsed again. Since January, I’ve been saying goodbye for today, every day, rather than goodbye forever.

Yesterday:

Lazy day. A little self-pity, a little fear, a little resentment, a lot of procrastination.

Tomorrow:

Church, step study meeting, chores, working Step Two.

5 Snacks I Enjoy:

1. Quesadillas
2. Doughnuts
3. Celery with cream cheese
4. Carrots with ranch dressing
5. Ice cream

5 Bands That I Know the Lyrics to Most of Their Songs:

1. Bach
2. Brahms
3. Joan Osborne
4. Talking Heads
5. Beatles

Yeah, I’m pretty out of it. :P

5 Things I Would Do with $100,000,000:

1. Pay off debt
2. Buy real estate: home for me, home for my wife, pay off my mom’s and sister’s mortgages, buy investment property
3. Educational trust funds for my son and my niece
4. Establish a foundation to, among other things:

Endow a chair in 20th century history at my alma mater;
Establish an international institute for research and projects to promote diplomacy, economic development, investment, cultural development, education and political reform in the Americas, named for my son’s great-great-grandfather, who is known as “the Rousseau of the Mexican Revolution.”

5. Retire to manage my real estate investments and to consider and nurture worthy proposals to my foundation

5 Locations I Would Like to Run Away to:

Hmmm… I kind of like where I am!

5 Bad Habits I Have:

1. Smoking
2. Eating like a teenager
3. Watching too much television
4. Letting my apartment look like a pigsty before cleaning it
5. Never washing my car

5 Things I Like Doing:

1. Reading
2. Spending time with my son
3. Hanging out with AA friends
4. Worshiping
5. Sailing

5 Things I Would Never Wear:

1. A tattoo
2. Anything requiring piercing
3. Wife-beater undershirt
4. A mullet
5. Neck chain

5 TV Shows I Like(d):

1. Nova
2. Seinfeld
3. Judge Joe Brown
4. CSI
5. Law and Order: Criminal Intent

5 Movies I Like:

1. A Day at the Races
2. Dr. Strangelove
3. Independence Day
4. What Dreams May Come (I may be the only one in the world who liked it)
5. Chinatown

5 Famous People I Would Like to Meet:

(I chose these for being not just remarkable, but probably fun to spend some time with! Also limited to dead white males, so I don’t have to embarrass myself by admitting I’d like to meet Madonna.)

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Bill Wilson
3. St. Augustine (I know he’s dead and male, not sure about white)
4. Benjamin Franklin
5. Winston Churchill

5 Biggest Joys at the Moment:

1. My son
2. AA
3. Church
4. My cats
5.

5 Favorite Toys:

1. Computer
2. A camera, which I want to get soon!
3. My son’s tricycle
4.
5.

5 People to Tag:

1. Bossco
2. Smussyolay
3. Scott
4. DAAve
5. Andy

Anonymity

2005-08-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

A blogging friend just closed down her blog and started a new one, withholding a few previously-known details about her identity. Why? She got into a jam at work, because someone read some things on her blog they didn't like.

Some other blogging friends have received poison-pen comments from people identified only as "anonymous," without any links.

Still others have deleted posts or felt constrained to explain or apologize for posts, because a friend or loved one didn't like the post.

All the bloggers I'm talking about are in Alcoholics Anonymous. Anonymity is a big thing for us AA's, and I think it's completely misunderstood by many unfamiliar with the Fellowship.

When I first came to AA, I thought everyone was anonymous so no one else inside AA would know who we really are, and that we were supposed to keep our alcoholism a complete secret from everyone outside of AA. All very sneaky because we are so ashamed of our alcoholism. We are supposed to hide.

Boy, did I have it wrong!

Anonymity in AA has two purposes. First, it protects the confidentiality of what another alcoholic says to us. For instance, my sponsor is not supposed to stand up at a meeting and say, "Listen to what Phil told me about in his fifth step..." There is, however, nothing to stop me, if I choose, to stand up, give my full name, address, phone number and social security number, and share my entire fifth step. We respect others' anonymity; we choose whatever level of personal anonymity we want for ourselves.

The second purpose of anonymity is to prevent anyone from setting themselves up as public spokesmen for AA, at the level of "press, radio and film" (and this now includes television). This keeps any of us from using AA to pursue personal power, prestige and wealth; and keeps AA from being hijacked by a self-willed dry drunk.

There is nothing about shame, sneaking or hiding in our anonymity. It's about respect and humility.

The first blogger -- let's call her Mata Hari -- disclosed enough information about herself to be identifiable, but well within the AA tradition of anonymity. And she is very honest and forthright in her "sharing" -- it benefits many of us. Who knows how many people, a little worried about their drinking, have found their way to her blog, identified with her words, saw a kind heart in her picture, knows someone who once lived in her town, has a fondly-remembered great-aunt with her name? And thought, hmmmm, maybe I'll try going to an AA meeting.

Now, because someone with a little power over Mata Hari didn't "get" how important journalizing and sharing are, to her and her readers, she has to be a little less honest, a little more anonymous, a little more remote from her readers. Because something Mata Hari said rubbed the wrong way.

The poison-pen anonymous commenters are simply contemptible, in my opinion. Their anonymity is fearful, ashamed, sneaky and hiding. There is nothing resembling respect or humility in their anonymity.

I'm sad for the bloggers who have been forthright and honest in their words, and in identifying themselves to people close to them, and have those people not "get" what's going on and feel they have to delete posts or explain or apologize for them. It takes courage to put yourself out there, and hurts when you pay a price.

I've chosen to be fairly anonymous in my blog. I don't share many identifiable details and I have told hardly any friends about the blog. I admit this is primarily out of fear. I don't want anything to come back and bite me. I admire those of you who choose less anonymity than I have chosen, and it irks and saddens me that some of you have suffered for it. And the people who hide behind cowardly anonymity to attack and inflict pain make me angry.

Serenity, Soil and Search Engines

2005-08-08T13:40:00.000-07:00

I tend to blog about things in my life as they relate to recovery. There's been a pleasant, quiet day-to-day-ness in life and recovery lately, so I haven't seen much blog-worthy stuff going on. I'm eager to start on Step Two again with my sponsor this week. I'll have to make some decisions very soon about whether to move to LA or stay where I am, and therefore whether to move, and therefore where to find a job and start working. The future of my relationship with my wife remains uncertain and stressful. Fairly big stuff, actually. I'm nervous about it, but, by the grace of God, neither fearful nor anxious. I see a lot of things I need to do in my life and in my recovery, but, for the moment at least, they are not overwhelming me.

My son went back to LA with his mom on Saturday. He was with me most of the last two weeks. My mom and her husband were visiting from Chicago for a week, especially for my son's third birthday last weekend. My wife actually threw a party for him and invited us. All of it -- the time with my son, the time with mom and "dad," the party -- was great, we all had a wonderful time.

It's been busy and eventful, but has felt quiet and serene. I'm not used to that. :)

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There was a meditation in 24 Hours a Day last week that alluded to the parable of the sower. Some seed fell on stone, some on shallow soil, some on thorny soil. But some fell on good soil and yielded a rich harvest. I see my spiritual state today as thorny soil, too easily choking off new growth with the thorns that became deeply rooted over the years. Day by day, the thorns are slowly being uprooted, and the good seeds are slowly taking root. God is preparing the soil in my life. In God's time, if I am diligent in tending the garden, the soil will be good enough to yield a bountiful harvest of His blessings. I'm trying to be patient and diligent.

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Ever take a look at some of the search engine results that lead to hits on your blog? Take a look at who's number 4 of 230,771 for "information on the book the summer of my german soldier." As of this post, at least. Sheesh, enough of you click on the link here, I'll be up to number one.

I hear you can generate a lot of hits to your site from search engines if you pepper it with sexy phrases like, say, "Separated, codependent single mom available for dates in Los Angeles now!" I'm not going to do that, though. I want to keep this blog on-topic.

Comment From Anonymous

2005-08-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

This was posted today as an anonymous comment to an old post on this blog. I want to highlight it here, hoping the poster will read this and benefit from any advice other readers may have.

Here's what our friend wrote:

This is my 36th day of being sober. Well, it depends on who you talk to; maybe I’m just a dry drunk.

I went into detox, obtained a sponsor, and completed steps 1, 2 and 3.

Since my release I have been attending 2 to 3 AA meetings a week, attending an aftercare program and have stayed sober. Still, I am harassed by my sponsor that I am not attending enough meetings and just making excuses. He said that AA comes before EVERYTHING! Is that really the case? He said that there has to be a substitute for alcohol, whether it is coffee, cigarettes or AA. If I AM making excuses and need a substitute for alcohol, does my daughter not count? Before I even started this program, I had commitments with my daughter.

I’m supposed to be married in November, should I just scrap the whole thing and start going to AA 7 nights a week. I really don’t think that is practical is it? Maybe to some that is there only option.

My life has never been out of control. There has been some bumpy times, but certainly not unmanageable by any means. I went into this program on my own, no trouble with the law or anything. I paid for it on my own, insurance wouldn’t cover it. I just felt that it would be a good thing for me to do, for my health, and my family.

Now I’m feeling very good about myself. My problem is with the way I have been treated by my sponsor. Nothing like “good job for staying sober for 30 days”. Nothing but belittling me. That doesn’t feel very good or rewarding.

I let my sponsor go last night and will be looking for a new one. I’m not counting out AA at this point; I want to give it another chance. Just not sure what is expected of me.

For the record; the ONLY time I really wanted a drink during the past 36 days was when I felt pressure from that sponsor. That’s pretty sad when you think about it.

First, I'll say: Congratulations on 36 days! It IS something to celebrate! Congratulations on going to meetings, getting a sponsor, and working the steps. These are all GREAT things to be doing.

It's not uncommon to change sponsors early in recovery. You need a sponsor you can work with effectively. It's also common (universal, maybe!) to resent and be pissed off at your sponsor sometimes. You're the only one who can determine if you have the right sponsor. Based solely on what you've said, my gut says stick with him for now. He's doing the steps with you, he's got you going to meetings and encouraging you to be involved in the Fellowship -- this is all "by the book," classic sponsor behavior, and it's gotten a lot of sponsees not just sober, but happy, joyous and free.

If your decision to dump your sponsor is final, get a new sponsor RIGHT AWAY. Make sure your new sponsor is committed to continue working the steps with you.

I don't know what your relationship is with your fiancee. November is a long way away. Make no mistake -- you are not just a dry drunk, you ARE in recovery. If you continue working your program with the commitment you have so far, you will see a very different man in the mirror in November than you do today. By November you may feel closer and more in love with your fiancee than you can imagine right now. On the other hand, you may feel that marrying her may not be the right thing to do at that point.

The way I look at "AA comes first:" if I decide to have a drink, I will get drunk, and I will continue to get drunk, and I will lose everything. When I was 36 days into sobriety, I didn't really see clearly how much I had already lost and/or thrown away by drinking, or what thin ice I was skating on. Just six months into sobriety, I have already seen some things restored to me, and I have more hope and optimism than I've had in decades. AA gives me tools I need to stay sober; I have to stay sober to keep from sinking into, at best, suicidal misery, and losing everyone I love and everything I care about; I WANT to stay sober because of the blessings and happiness I've received already and the promise of more to come. Put it all together, and AA is the lynchpin, or keystone, I absolutely have to have. It HAS to be my priority.

You wonder if your daughter counts as a substitute for alcohol. I've gone through a similar thought process with my son. I had a period of focusing on my son as motivation for sobriety, a substitute for alcohol. Essentially, my son was my Higher Power. I had it backwards: he's a tiny boy, and I have a responsibility to be, in very tangible and concrete ways, his "higher power." My Higher Power has to be God. It's my responsibility (and, I've discovered, a marvelous gift from God) to do my best to be a conduit of God's purpose, God's love, God's nurturing for my son.

For me, the God of my understanding, my higher power, is the substitute for alcohol. God works with me, teaches me, and shows me my purpose, through my sponsor, through AA meetings, through working my steps, through my son, through myriad ways each day -- to the extent that I am diligent in maintaining my spiritual fitness, and have adequate humility to receive the message and not short-circuit or overwhelm the message with my own agenda.

What's expected of you in AA? "The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking." Anything else anyone says (including this post you are reading now) can be taken as a suggestion or an opinion. Your standing as a member of the Fellowship is exactly the same as anyone else. You are not required to go to meetings, do the steps, believe in God, have a sponsor, have AA commitments, or anything else -- they merely represent the successful experience others have had staying sober. Each of us is free to make AA what we need it to be for us to stay sober.

God bless you, and may He grant you many more days of sobriety!

I welcome and look forward to reading what others have to say.

Hat

2005-07-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

I usually don't discuss stuff like this in my blog, but I wanted to share this. I would post a picture if I had one, and I really wish I had one.

My son (age almost 3) sometimes gets in a mood that he doesn't feel like getting dressed. Yesterday morning I had his clothes laid out for him after a bath, including his pullups since he's not quite potty-trained yet. "Come on, my boy, time to get dressed so we can go to the park." I stepped out of the room for a moment, and when I came back he was jumping on the bed, grinning, completely naked. Except he had the pullup on his head, perfectly aligned, pulled down to his eyebrows and all the way over his ears. He ran around like that for 10 minutes before I could get him dressed.

It was about the funniest thing I have ever seen.

Inserenity, etc.

2005-07-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

A silent prayer for the alcoholic who still suffers, in and out of these rooms. Especially in my prayers tonight are my real-life fellows B and C.

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Another fight with my wife this afternoon. Resulted in that (now-recognizable) feeling of "inserenity" in my gut, thoughts ran wild with self-pity and resentment, called my sponsor and vented, he gave me some advice and suggested what I might say to her. Talked to her again, followed my sponsors advice, feeling serene again. Cool. I love AA. :)

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I seem to be somewhat unusual, in that I've done all 12 steps, in order, in a structured step workshop, in my first 6 months of sobriety. Far too fast to be thorough, but I was diligent enough to do them as well as I could, and the benefit was simply incredible.

So what do I do for an encore to this impressive achievement? I was thinking of commissioning a plaque in my own honor at the Alano club...

Just kidding! I think the main thing I gained from my 2-minute 12-step drill was a desire to do them again! It was like a flash of lightning, illuminating a dark, stormy, unfamiliar landscape for an instant: I have a better idea of the lay of the land, where I'm going and how to get there. It still isn't a walk in the sunshine, but it's a hell of a lot less scary than wandering around in the pitch dark without any clue at all.

I just finished another step one last week with my sponsor. We read aloud and discussed step one in the 12X12, which is now an old friend. He had me write about powerlessness and unmanageability in all areas of my life. The exercise was much easier, and actually much deeper and thorough, than my first step one. Here's part of what I wrote:

I’m powerless over everything other than my own (second) thoughts, my own actions, and my own responses to the words and actions of others and to the conditions and events of the world. I pray for the courage to change the things I can – which are my own thoughts, actions and responses. I pray for the serenity to accept the things I cannot change – which are others’ words and actions, and conditions and events in the world. I pray for wisdom to tell the difference – which seems to depend on eliminating self-will and wishful thinking, eliminating fear of outcomes that I’m powerless over, and trusting God to protect me and guide me.
Most aspects of my life still seem to be unmanageable. By the grace of God, the unmanageable urge and temptation to drink has been removed, on a daily basis, for a number of days. God has granted me a measure of motivation, strength and endurance to improve the manageability of being a father to my son, and to improve my ability to keep my side of the street clean in my relationship with my wife, and He has granted me a measure of serenity to accept my wife’s words and actions.

I pray that God will continue to increase my ability to do my part to reduce the unmanageability of my life, according to His will.

Some guys have told me 12-step recovery is like peeling back layers of an onion. Somewhere along the line, in the last few months, it seems I've been granted more ability to face my shortcomings and character defects more honestly, with less fear, and without hating myself and beating myself up so much. I've also noticed that prayer flows naturally into a lot of spaces in my life, though prayer was virtually absent from my life not too long ago.

This is pretty cool stuff, I think. I love AA! :)

It's Nice to Have Choices

2005-07-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

Option 1: Be hurt and pissed off that my wife ignores my work and input for finding a new day care center for our son, be outraged that she unilaterally pursues the most expensive place in town and will expect me to pay half, and blame her because she was the one who chose, without consulting me, the day care he's in now, which is closing next week, in the first place.

Option 2: Be grateful that my wife is committed to what's best for our son, be grateful that she is willing and able to pursue it and find it, be grateful that my son may have the opportunity to attend a fine preschool, be grateful that we have the resources so he can go there, be grateful that a seeming obstacle is turning out to be a gateway to something better.

Before I choose, I will pause to be grateful that I have choices today that I wouldn't have seen before, and to be grateful for all the gratitude lists I've noticed online lately that have reminded me to be grateful.

My Toddler Teaches Me: Lesson 2

2005-07-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

The slogan, "My best thinking got me here," has always kind of thudded for me. I sort of understand the point, but I've never been an idiot. I have lousy judgment and have made really bad decisions, but I'm not entirely lacking in intellectual resources. The slogan always seemed to imply that, since my thinking is flawed, I should stop thinking, rather than improve my thinking so it works for me instead of against me.

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My (almost) three-year-old son has helped clarify the point of this slogan for me. He is a very smart boy (in my completely objective opinion!). He is rapidly learning about the world around him, figuring out how things work, observing and making connections.

He loves videos. Lately he has become as interested in playing the videos as he is in watching them. He has figured out that you have to insert the DVD or tape into the player, and press buttons on the players, the TV and remotes to make it play. He has observed Daddy go through the whole process, and he likes to do it himself now.

But there is no way he can do the whole process himself. The DVD will be upside down or coated with peanut butter, he doesn't know which buttons to push, he doesn't understand he has to wait for the disk to load before pressing buttons. It's just too complicated for him to understand completely, not because he's stupid, but because his brain simply isn't equipped to do it. He needs guidance, help, encouragement and teaching. I have to be firm, because he resists help, wants so much to be able to do it himself, to be self-sufficient. On his own, he won't get the results he wants. With help, he gets the results, and he also grows and learns.

And he goes a very good job! It thrills me, gives me delight, fills me with wonder to see his mind grow, to see his confidence and determination, to see how well he does. Obviously, there is no way I would think he's stupid or worthless, get angry with him, or punish him because he can't do it himself. I don't expect him to do it himself, and I'm happy to help him. My bond of love grows every time we play a video together.

I'm a lot like my son. I'm not stupid or worthless, either. I want to be self-sufficient, to do things myself without help. I have an idea of the pieces and processes that make the world work, and I can easily convince myself that I understand it. But I really don't understand it. There is no way I can do the right things, at the right time, in the right order, to make the world around me run properly. I need help to get the results I'm seeking -- I simply am not equipped to do it myself. It's beyond my comprehension, no matter how much I resist help, no matter how confident and determined I am.

But my son is different from me, though, in some important ways, and he teaches me how I should respond. When I help him and correct him, he resists and sometimes is frustrated or impatient, but he yields, watches me, trusts me and learns from me. He doesn't refuse to let go of the DVD; he doesn't run screaming from the room; he doesn't smash the DVD, the TV and DVD player; he doesn't fear that I'm going to yell at him, belittle him or punish him.

I can see how I respond to helping my son: I'm happy to do it, I'm patient with him, I love to guide him, the furthest thing from my mind is to punish him or be angry with him. Helping him is one of the most important purposes in my life, and I'm delighted to do it. And I'm just a deeply flawed man, fumbling my way through life.

God is the one who helps me, sometimes directly but more frequently through people around me. His love is perfect, His patience is infinite. How much greater must be God's delight in watching me trying my best, trying to learn, struggling to do the right thing! How much greater must be God's delight in helping me and guiding me! How deep must be His grief and pain when I refuse to yield, when I run away screaming, when I fear I will be punished, when I refuse to trust Him, when in frustration and impatience I smash the gifts he has given me! How worried He must be when I give up and quit trying if I can't do it all by myself!

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My "best thinking" may be pretty good, even terrific at times, but it is completely inadequate, not because I'm an idiot, but because I am more like a little child than I care to admit. There is no shame in being dependent, in needing help -- I was designed and intended by God to depend on Him and need help. God never intended that I should be self-sufficient. He never intended that my "best thinking" would be anything close to all I need.

My Toddler Teaches Me: Lesson 1

2005-07-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

I could devote an entire blog to recovery lessons my not-quite-three son teaches me. He has many pedagogical methods: sometimes he sets an example for me, sometimes he unlocks new discoveries about myself, and sometimes he holds a mirror up so that I can see myself in him. His curriculum is pretty specialized and focused: it's all about teaching me how to love others and walk humbly and gratefully in the light of God's love.

The first lesson I'll share here is the rewards of Doing the Next Right Thing. I wrote a few days ago that my program, or I should say "program," is noteworthy more for its gaps than its contents. The gap I'm most conscious of is step six: readiness to have God remove my defects of character. I've so far identified twelve categories of personal defects -- the seven deadlies plus another five serious things. And the one that may be my biggest obstacle to progress is sloth. Even when I can clearly identify the Next Right Thing, I don't do it.

Every morning I pray for, among other things, focused motivation, energetic discipline and physical endurance to Do the Next Right Thing. The one area where I have most clearly seen God answer this prayer is with my son. Over the past couple months I have been aware of improvement in my effectiveness as a father. I seem to be able to see more clearly what my son needs from me, and be able to provide it promptly: a regular schedule, a new pair of shoes, a hug, a trip to the park, a call to his mom, paper and crayons, a new day care center, a graham cracker, a tickle. Big stuff and small stuff. Whether I'm too tired or not, whether it's something his mom "should" provide or not, whether I have something "better" to do or not. Far from perfect, but better than before.

The result is astounding. I've always had a good, loving relationship with my son. But it has become so much closer, so quickly. I guess he somehow understands that he can depend on me, and I can tell he enjoys his time with me more than he did before. And I feel so much closer to him. By making an effort to place his needs above my own desires, what I get from my relationship with him exceeds anything that I would have thought to desire!

This isn't anything different from what I've heard people say a hundred times in meetings. But my son has given me the first opportunity to try it myself, and he has given me the first taste of the rewards of Doing the Next Right Thing.

High Volume

2005-07-11T00:20:00.000-07:00

Those of us whose poison of choice was beer, I've discovered, shared yet another problem: disposing of the prodigious cubic footage of empties. You liquor drinkers may not be aware how many beers it takes to black out every night and how much sheer space they take up.

A guy shared at a meeting that he would drink in his car, and toss all the empties in the ditch up the street from his house. He thought this was very clever, of course, until his wife commented a few months after he got sober that the street was so much tidier since he quit drinking.

A speaker at another meeting lived in a condo complex, and there was a trash chute. He was on the third floor, and the chute was in an outdoor corridor visible from everyones' front windows. When he dumped his bags of empty Heineken bottles, it sounded like an atomic bomb when they hit the dumpster, and everyone looked out their windows at the noise. So, he started wrapping each empty bottle in newspaper. "Normal people don't giftwrap their empties. Of course not! I was the only one smart enough to think of it. Normal people never came up with my brilliant idea."

For me, we had a housekeeper/babysitter with a granddaughter who loved Hello Kitty stuff. The little girl somehow converted empty cans to Hello Kitty merchandise. So I saved my empties for the housekeeper to give to her granddaughter. One time I took the housekeeper home and I was invited inside. There were Hello Kitty bedside lamps, a Hello Kitty bedspread, a Hello Kitty lunchbox, Hello Kitty shoes, socks, shirts. For all I know, there was a Hello Kitty Porsche in the garage.

Definite Article

2005-07-08T00:40:00.000-07:00

Dang, it's been awhile!

Thank you to my friends in blogtopia for your kind comments in my absence. I'm grateful for your support -- I will try to be a more reliable correspondent. If I am to recover, I have to carry the message to you, and allow you to carry the message to me!

What a marvelous message it is! A message of hope, of life, of love! A message that I don't have to be a slave to alcohol, that I don't have to live in this prison of self-will and self-reliance I spent so many years building! A message that there is a purpose to my life, a place for me in this world, and that all I have to do is open my hands and my heart, and accept it!

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I can tell you that I've been running a really lousy program of recovery lately. Not enough meetings, not calling my sponsor, retreating into too much isolation -- all the alcoholic behaviors I tend to fall into. Some fear of the future, confusion about what to do next, frustration, resentment and anger.

Fear, confusion, frustration, resentment and anger -- all the signs that I've been spending a lot of time with my wife! :) I have been going to LA every week, and my wife has let me stay with her. Sometimes. She says she wants to work on reconciliation. Sometimes. Other times she says she wants to give up. I never know what she will do or say next; she is unforgiving of all my shortcomings, big or small, real or imagined; her word is her bond until she changes her mind. All in all, business as usual.

I've done my best to be reliable, trustworthy, supportive, open, patient, reasonable and forgiving. I'm far from perfect, and it's not driven by any romantic passion, but I'm making the effort. I remain committed to doing my part to reconcile our marriage and restore our family. I can't say I'm optimistic, but I leave the outcome in God's hands.

As a practical matter, I'm following the advice not to initiate big changes in the first year of sobriety, if I can avoid them. I'm coming up on six months sober, so I'll kick her to the curb in another six months! Seriously, though, a lot of miracles can happen in six months. One day at a time. And a lot of Serenity Prayers.

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The greatest blessing in my life, of course, is my son. I am so grateful that I am seeing him regularly and frequently, and have established such a strong and loving bond with him. I'm planning to move to LA in the next couple months so I can be closer and be with him even more. (So much for my one-year rule...)

Fortunately, I've spent enough time in LA to get to know the area and decide I like it -- there's excellent AA, and I've found a church that's great. So, I plan to go to LA, find work, and start getting things going there. If I trusted my wife to stay put in LA, I would have no qualms at all. My fear is that she'll bolt somewhere else. She has told me that she's committed to staying in LA for a few years at least, and she would not move without consulting me. That commitment, along with ten bucks, will get me a cup of coffee in LA...

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I said above that a lot of miracles can happen in six months -- I am grateful for the miracles of the past six months. I can scarcely fathom that the days of sobriety have piled up to almost six months. The paradox is that each day I seem to get a little more clarity about myself, with growing recognition of my own flaws and limitations. I see less and less in myself that I can really work with, and more and more how weak, futile and ridiculous have been my efforts to run my own life all these years.

Sobriety is a gift that has been given to me by God, in spite of, not because of, my own efforts. What I do or don't do doesn't make much difference -- and that's not a copout, an easy way to avoid responsibility -- I am responsible for what I do, but I'm at least as likely to screw things up as do things right. God's mercy, grace and kindness are boundless, though, and His divine alchemy transforms the leaden futility of my words and deeds into the pure gold of His purposes.

Does this make any sense? I can't say I really understand it. The less confidence I have in myself, and the less I depend on myself and count on my own efforts resulting in anything worthwhile, the result is that I gain more confidence in the future, that everything is going to be all right, through the grace, mercy, love and power of God.

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The twelfth step says that a spiritual awakening is the result of these steps. I've been pondering that definite article -- it's not a result, it's the result. A spiritual awakening is not merely one among a bunch of things that happens -- it's the whole point! I'm so deeply grateful that I'm getting a glimmer of that awakening. I admit that I'm delighted that we claim spiritual progress, not perfection, for a really selfish reason: the joy and hope I've gained are completely out of proportion to the barely discernible progress I've made. I want to keep on making a little bit more progress, and gaining more and more joy, hope and peace, all my life. If I were to reach perfection, it seems to me I would not have the chance to gain more blessings!

Still Here, Still Sober

2005-04-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

The last couple weeks have been pretty eventful. I've moved into an apartment, handed over the keys to my house yesterday. Downsizing from a house to an apartment was pretty overwhelming! I threw away a lot of old stuff. Clearing away wreckage...

Many regrets, many blessings, much anxiety, much gratitude. A day at a time, through HP and the support of AA, friends in the fellowship, friends in my church, family -- and in fact, support from my wife! -- with a great deal of prayer, I have been blessed with a daily reprieve from my urge to drink.

Today is actually day 90 of sobriety for me. A humbling milestone. Thank you, God, for your mercy, grace and blessings!

Malady of the Spirit

2005-03-22T22:21:00.000-08:00

The past ten days or two weeks have been hard. My brain has been very busy. I haven't been sleeping well, and I've been waking up early. A lot of confusion, wanting to "make deals" with my recovery. A hard time staying away from "just one" binge, "just one" good drunk to take the pain away for "just one" day, my brain trying to convince me that "just one" won't hurt, in fact it will help, I'll get that magical insight and solution to all my problems, and after "just one" good solid spree the urge to drink will evaporate forever and life will be great.

My brain actually believes this shit.

Fortunately HP has been able to keep my brain from taking charge. Sometimes it feels like the tool HP has placed in my hands is good old-fashioned white-knuckle will power, and if that's what I got, that's what I'll use. "Any length..." Since my heart and soul are still largely made of stone, and my brain is off on its own agenda, HP seems to be leading me by the butt lately. AA meetings, step workshop, church, church group meetings, hanging with my sponsor, prayer, BB and 12X12 reading, Bible reading. I've found myself leading a few meetings, and I've taken a coffee commitment. I've added a Sunday morning Bible study at church, a couple one-time service commitments with my church group, and the divorce class I originally intended to join starts in a couple weeks. My butt is dragging me to do the things people tell me I need to do to make this work.

And through it all, not only does my brain seem impervious to what's going on, it keeps saying, "Have a drink. C'mon. Let's get drunk. You've been sober for 197 of the past 235 days. You deserve a vacation."

Strangely, I seem to be the only one overly concerned about this. As long as I don't drink, and I show up at the times and places I'm expected and/or committed to, and have done the things I'm supposed to have done, people seem to think there's nothing to worry about. I'm the only one who seems terrified of the whole situation. Even my cats have been especially serene and affectionate lately.

_____________________________

I suppose I should try to be more sympathetic and patient with my brain, because steps four and five have given it a lot to handle. It's clear I've only made a start on steps four and five. I've opened Pandora's box, and a lot of stuff has been coming out since last week.

It's dawning on me how many other things besides alcohol I use, and do, addictively and compulsively. Cigarettes, coffee, and marriage, for example (there's other things, too, and unless you're my sponsor you're unlikely to hear them all!). I can recognize addictive patterns and behavior I had when I was ten years old, long before substances entered the picture. All of it, not just alcohol, has been chronic and progressive. Maybe some of it isn't quite as egregious without alcohol greasing the skids, but it isn't going away on its own.

I'm starting to see the addictive nature of my relationships. Probably anyone who has had the patience to glance at my travails with my wife and son, documented in this blog, recognized it long before I did.

It's painful to acknowledge the burden I've been trying to put on my little son's tiny shoulders, what this nasty little dance my wife and I have been indulging ourselves in could cost this innocent child. My wife didn't "save" me, she couldn't magically transform me into the man I want to be, any more than a 12-pack could. Any more than I could transform her. So our answer, unconsciously, since we had "failed" each other, was to have a child, who would magically make us into the parents we always wanted for ourselves.

How long before I start resenting, being angry with, and pulling away from my son because he hasn't transformed me into a happy, strong, attentive, committed and loving father, into the man I want to be???

I'm asking the wrong Son to redeem me, I think...

I'm looking to my own tiny son to give me the redemption that can only come from God. I'm using my son the same way I use alcohol. The same way I use my wife. And the wife before her. And the wife before her. And jobs. And diplomas. And on and on.

_____________________________

God, please remove this obsession with alcohol from me, and my addictive and obsessive behavior along with it. If not for my benefit, then for my innocent son's.

Fifth Step

2005-03-17T14:32:00.000-08:00

Other guys have talked about what a release they felt, like a huge load off their backs. The Big Book says,

"Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We can begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe."

So, I was expecting harps and choirs of angels. But my Step Five just wasn't that big a deal.

Maybe there was stuff I didn't talk about -- I didn't consciously hold anything back, but it could be there's stuff I haven't uncovered, that I don't recognize, that I'm in denial about.

What I felt most was disgust. Like when I start cleaning the kitchen sink after letting dishes pile up for a week or two, and discovering rotten sights and smells. Finding all the garbage.

The progress, I think, is that for once I didn't feel self-loathing. What disgusted me were the defects of character, and the behavior they have caused. All sitting there together in a big stinking ugly pile. But they felt detached from me. No more a part of me than what's in my garbage can.

Maybe I didn't feel a big release because there was not much I haven't told someone about, sometime in my past. I've had plenty of shrinks, and I've been blessed with people I've trusted that I've told my secrets to. I've talked about the really awful shameful stuff, even shared some at meetings, because it isn't the most embarrassing stuff to disclose. So it was the most embarrassing things that I disclosed for the first time, rather the most shameful things, if you understand my distinction, and I guess the truly shameful things are the ones that weigh so much.

I didn't feel delight, peace, ease, didn't feel fear falling away as though exfoliated. It was a spiritual experience, but not a burning bush. I certainly had no strong feeling that the drink problem has disappeared. It's still a daily decision, sometimes a daily struggle.

Maybe step five was underwhelming because I'm still in early sobriety -- most people don't seem to embark on the steps as early as I have. Maybe it's because I'm doing the steps according to the schedule of my workshop, rather than working a step only once I feel secure in the previous step. Maybe the first character defect I need to work in steps six and seven is "impatience." :)

In any case, I see I'm kind of wallowing in a form a disappointment in this post. I am, actually, feeling some pride and gratitude about it. I DID it! Not perfectly, not completely, but I made a start. I should probably consider what I wrote in my last post, that the vast majority of the guys in my workshop are doing their steps for the second, third, sixth, seventh time -- apparently they didn't do it "perfectly" their first time either, once and for all time! I hope in 5 or 10 years, I'll find myself in another workshop, working the steps for the fifth or tenth time, and getting new insight and new growth in my life and deeper serenity in my sobriety.

Taking Steps

2005-03-15T22:13:00.000-08:00

I'm doing a step five with my sponsor tomorrow. I don't really feel ready for it -- my step four is pretty half-assed. I'm trying to keep up with the step workshop I'm in. There's 15 or 20 guys in the workshop, and only 3 or 4 of us are "rookies," doing the steps for the first time. So I always feel behind: less than, different from, not as good as, etc! My sponsor wholeheartedly supports the workshop, and isn't particularly worried about me doing all the steps "right." I can always start again from the beginning as soon as I'm done. I'm starting to get suspicious that you never "finish" doing the steps...

I found an apartment today. I'm dropping off the deposit and application tomorrow, so unless someone grabbed it late this afternoon it should be a done deal. It's a big emotional step -- letting go of the house, and moving on.

I still haven't talked to my wife to let her know I'm staying where I am and not moving to LA. Still chicken. My sponsor's been out of town for a few days, so I want to talk to him about all the stuff that's been banging around my head, and how to handle the conversation with my wife and the ways it may go, without creating too much new wreckage.

Sunday was a tough day for me. I was getting a lot of relapse signals. I did some reading in Living Sober and Staying Sober, and found a lot of insight in both. I was particularly struck by the discussions of relationships, family recovery and codependency, which led me to Love is a Choice, which focuses specifically on codependency.

I recognized before the importance of my relationship with my wife, and I've had a vague idea that I have codependency issues of my own. What's clearer to me now is how strong my own codependency is specifically in my relationship with my wife, and the potential threat this particular codependency is to maintaining my sobriety. It was the likeliest culprit in my relapse a couple months ago.

At some point, if I am to maintain longterm sobriety, I will have to delve into my overall codependency issues. Right now, to establish a stable early recovery, I need to at least bandage the codependent attitude and behavior I have with my wife. In terms my favorite oldtimers would comprehend, I have to avoid trying to work her program (especially since she doesn't have one), clean up my side of the street, then let go and let God. I can't control outcomes, and I can't control her. If I try to, I'm risking relapse, and I don't ever want to go there again.

Red Meat

2005-03-12T16:39:00.000-08:00

I'm plugging another blog. RootsRadical is the real deal about recovery from alcoholism in AA. This post says a lot about him. He's coming up on his first AA birthday, he has a great new job, things are going very well for him. This is a potential minefield of complacency: "Gee, my life is really good... I'm happy... maybe I'm not really like... maybe I can cut back on... maybe there would be no harm in... "

Instead, Roots reflects on the folly of relapse. He remembers where he was a year ago, he remembers where alcohol took him, and warns himself (and me) what alcoholism does to us. He notes the location of the slippery slope, and chooses to walk away from the abyss again today.

This is AA without compromise, without apology, without excuses. Roots is the guy who grabs your lapels after the meeting and tells you what you need to hear. A crusty oldtimer, after just a year.

"If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it," Roots can give you help along your way. This the red meat. (So to speak!)

Clarity and/or Insanity

2005-03-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

I don't know if what I'm thinking is a moment of clarity or alcoholic insanity. The idea that's lodged in my head is to file papers for legal separation, without telling my wife beforehand, without even telling her I'm not moving to LA.

The first thing the court would do is send us to a court mediator to work out a "parenting plan." What I want to do is not argue my point of view, not push for what I want, make neither accusations nor excuses -- just present information honestly to the mediator, so the mediator can make a recommendation to the court for what's best for my son. The court orders what I and my wife are to do, and that's that.

I wouldn't have to argue with or try to negotiate with my wife any more. No more trying to navigate through the thicket of anticipating how she will react to what I say or do, and what she will do next. I wouldn't have to choose between exerting my self-will and submitting to her will. All I would have to do is follow the court's instructions.

There's something comfortingly Third-Step-ish about it.

I don't even want to tell my wife I'm not moving to LA. I have no idea what she may do if I tell her. I think she will be furious. She may come unglued. The potential consequence I fear most is that she may suddenly, without warning, pick up and move my son even farther away. If she does that before I file, I have no legal recourse at all.

On the "clarity" hand, she has a track record of suddenly and arbitrarily moving away with my son, and creating obstacles for me to have a steady, regular schedule with my son. From that perspective it seems reasonable to anticipate that she may respond to the news in the same way. If so, then I should think "strategically" about pre-empting this response by not discussing with her beforehand that I'm not moving. Just file the papers, without giving her advance warning. Fait accompli.

The downside, of course, is that it would be Pearl Harbor and we will be at war. Whatever slim hope I've had of reconciliation and restoration of my family will be further, greatly, diminished, if not extinguished. I'm thinking separation rather than divorce, simply to leave the door ajar in case of a miracle. I should anticipate my wife would up the ante to divorce. So be it.

On the "insanity" hand, this kind of suspiciousness and distrust, and trying to pre-emptively take control of a situation, are classic alcoholic thinking and behavior. So maybe what I should do is be forthright in telling her I'm not moving, and why I'm not, hoping that her better nature will prevail, she will accept my decision, and she will be willing to make a good faith effort to reach agreement directly with me. And, if my fears turn out to come true and, say, she takes my son with her across the country, I need to accept that as part of life on its own terms.

I've made up my mind not to move to LA. But I sure don't know what to do next.

I Don't Want to Go

2005-03-10T15:35:00.000-08:00

Moving to LA is looking like a bad idea. I don't think I'm going to do it.

The move is risky under the best conditions. If I were sure my wife was going to stay put; if she had a stable job and stable place to live; if she were supportive of my recovery; if she were trying to encourage and facilitate a regular and predictable relationship between me and my son -- then I would only be dealing with the stress of moving to a new city that I don't want to live in and where I don't know anyone.

This past weekend emphasized to me that I cannot count on a single one of the "ifs." (Have I ever mentioned that my wife is bipolar and takes a lot of lithium?) It also reinforced just how much I don't want to be in LA.

One thing that seems to have sunk in from AA: I make lousy decisions, and I'm better off following advice. I've discussed my planned move with my family, my sponsor, quite a few AA friends, I'll discuss it tonight with my church group, and I'm scheduling appointments with my pastor and my shrink. So far, the advice I'm getting, given the whole situation, is to stay put in the town I'm in, which is my home and where I have a lot of people who know me and care about me. My best chance of staying sober is here. In LA, I'm hoping for the best, taking a chance with odds that aren't great, and rolling the dice.

By moving to LA, I'm leaving my life in my wife's control, still trying to react to her next move. I've always operated with this crazy assumption that, once she does this and finishes that, then she'll be stable and predictable, suddenly she will meet me halfway, and everything will be fine. But it never has been stable -- it has always been chaos. Why should I believe that simply by moving to LA, I will see different behavior from her? I'll still be accomodating her, and she will have no reason or inclination not to keep taking advantage of it.

I need to stop accomodating and stop trying to appease my wife.

There is no reason for me to assume I will see my son any more frequently, or have a more predictable and stable life with him, by living in LA than by staying here. It could even be worse in LA -- proximity would give my wife more opportunity to manipulate the situation (and me) to her convenience.

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So, then, I have to face the next logical issue: if I can't reach agreement with my wife -- we've been going, at best, sideways for six months -- then we need agreement imposed from outside. In my state, according to the attorney I spoke with yesterday, I need to consider filing for legal separation, which would include a binding "parenting plan" of custody, visitation schedule and support payments.

I probably will not like what's ordered, my wife may not like it, but at least it would be stable and I would have some legal recourse if she reneges. Plus, I wouldn't have to go through the constant ordeal of trying to negotiate every single time I see my son. I would know exactly what my minimum responsibilities are and exactly what my parental privileges are.

The questions I have to ask myself are: Am I, honestly, motivated by trying to provide stability and predictability for my son and myself? Or am I actually trying to exert control for the sake of being in control? Are there other options that I should consider? Should I make yet another attempt to reach an agreement directly with my wife?

The most discouraging thing about trying to work out an agreement with my wife is that I don't trust her to abide by what we agree to. In the past several months she has built up a pretty good track record of unilaterally discarding agreements and commitments, big and small, as soon as they become inconvenient to her. How do you negotiate and compromise with someone when you don't trust their intention to live up to their word?

I also am pretty sure she will go ballistic when I tell her I've decided not to move to LA. I think she's counting on it at this point, so that I can relieve her of some of the burden of taking care of our son (when it's convenient for her and/or she needs a break). I don't want to speculate about how she will want to "punish" me for it, or how she will try to get some "justice." It would not surprise me at all if she suddenly picked up and moved to yet another city, state or country. It couldn't hurt to have the court encouraging her to stay put.

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I seem to be trying to talk myself into hiring an attorney and drawing up some papers. I have to be careful not to convince myself of anything. I need to seek out advice from people I trust and people who have expertise and perspective to shed light on the situation. This is too big and important, and I'm too ill-equipped right now, to try to make this decision by myself.

Plug

2005-03-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

If you haven't been following Bob's Trudge the past week or so, I recommend it. Bob is coming up on his 6th AA birthday on March 15 (way to go, buddy!)

On March 1, Bob started recounting what he was doing each day six years ago, on his last drunk before coming in to the fellowship.

His story is not that unusual, I think, but the way he has been unrolling it, day by day, is pretty gripping. To follow it each day gives a sense of what it was like to go through it in real time, how bad, how damn slow and relentless it felt to hit bottom.

Juxtaposed with his memoir Bob shares his daily life today, which is heartening to a newcomer like me. He's an example of what it means to try to apply the principles in all his affairs.

You Have Everything Going For You!

2005-03-08T09:42:00.000-08:00

Bikipatra put her finger on an issue that has dogged me all my life. In her blog she wrote:

"As far as I am concerned the attendance at Yale of a Mexican waiter's daughter is a symptom of grandiosity and pomposity. I wanted to go there because I was mentally ill. That I was gifted enough to go is an inconsequential detail."

Substitute "Yale" with another snotty eastern college plus an Ivy League b-school, and substitute "Mexican waiter's daughter" with "depressed, isolated, fearful, lost boy" and it becomes the story of my education and career.

I picked out a college based on "I'll show them all" and "Once this and that and the other thing happens, then I'll be happy." A few years later, since that hadn't worked, I added "I'll be financially set for life" to the motivations and went to business school.

Like any good alcoholic (pre-beginner though I was), I really expected a credential from an impressive, prestigious, superior, self-satisfied, rich, powerful school would magically transform me into a person with all those same desirable qualities.

The education was fine, I imagine about the same as any other college or business school. The problems are the gilt-edged, high-profile diplomas.

There was no magical transformation, needless to say, but a whole value system and self-identity seemed to come wrapped in the diplomas, like dead fish in yesterday's newspaper. I've struggled to knuckle under to the demands of the values and images, even while I've simultaneously rebelled.

The images, values, and assumptions are very powerful, reinforced by powerful institutions, and part of me is always sure something is wrong with me if I don't measure up to my diplomas. As Bikipatra points out, a lot of people around us, even some of those trying to treat our diseases, are drawn, unconsciously, into the assumptions and images, and have trouble seeing our credentials as symptoms rather than easy solutions.

"You can just walk into a 100K job any time you want. Take a high-pressure, rat-race job and you'll succeed at it without breaking a sweat. You're smart. You're talented. You're experienced.

Obviously, since you went to business school, your career is your top priority, you crave working 80 hours a week, you're confident, strong, a leader, you're inspired by corporate mission statements and you believe in the strategic-plan-of-the-month. You have all this education to "fall back on," so once you "pull it together" you can get right back in the rat race!

You have everything going for you!

Accomplish! Achieve! Earn!

All you need are self-confidence, self-assurance, self-reliance, independence..."

I haven't shown anyone anything, my education and my job have never given me happiness or satisfaction, and I have no financial security. In AA they always say "insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results." So why on earth would I want to "pull it together," embrace this persona of a corporate drone, and make myself miserable??

These diplomas and credentials I have "going for me" are nothing more than another symptom and expression of my disease, and "pulling it together" means nothing less than walking away from recovery.

All Too Familiar

2005-03-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

I spent another day with my son yesterday. We had a wonderful time together. I'm so grateful he is doing well, a happy, cheerful boy. He really is a pleasure to be around. He is growing and changing so fast. He loves to count, loves to read, loves to climb all over Daddy, LOVES to run. Yesterday he climbed all the way to the top of the McDonald's playground tower for the first time. And he started learning to identify the colors of the dots on his blanket.

I'm grateful to have a clear enough head, and the beginning of willingness to set aside my self-absorption, to be able to focus on and enjoy my son. He really is very engaging, and I seem to be open enough for him to engage with me. I love him so much! :)

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My resentments and distrust of my wife are still going quite strong. Even as I was enjoying my boy playing, the "McDonalds-on-weekends-dad" image was not lost on me. My wife and I didn't have a fight or anything -- I think mostly because I responded to her with silence when I didn't have a response she wanted to hear. Walking around her rather scruffy neighborhood, I was incredulous, once again, that she chose this environment for herself and our son, as preferable to working together to rebuild a good family and home in a safe and friendly neighborhood. She complained a lot about how early she has to get up to get the boy to day care and get to work on time, and how uneasy she is taking our son to the car (wherever she found a spot on the street the night before) in the morning with all the weirdos hanging around.

In some ways the day was all too familiar. My wife had said she was going to go out grocery shopping and running errands while I was with our son at her apartment. She ended up sleeping all day, getting out of her pajamas long enough in the late afternoon for me to go to the grocery store with her.

How many weekends were spent like that when we were together?? A typical Saturday and Sunday routine was that we would have plans to go to the beach, or the park, or some other activity. I would get up at 7:00 am (with a low-grade hangover and far too little sleep, of course) with our son, and be with him by myself until noon or one or two when my wife finally woke up to drag herself around the house the rest of the day.

Weekday mornings I got up (hungover and unrested) with our son, got him dressed and started on breakfast until the fulltime nanny/housekeeper arrived and I took off to work. My wife seldom stirred, let alone woke up or got out of bed, before I went to work. I really have no idea what my wife did all day. Supervised the nanny/housekeeper, I guess. Sat on the patio telephoning her friends about how wealthy and successful she's going to be, any day now.

So I don't really have a lot of sympathy with how tough my wife's life is now. She decided she would have a better life on her own. She decided to move to another city to make a living, without considering the consequences, without considering the obstacle it created to my ability to help.

I just hope she holds it together for a few more weeks until I can move to LA, find work and get settled a bit, and be better prepared to be the primary caregiver for our son -- then she can go ahead and come unglued and indulge herself in the nervous breakdown I see coming.

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When I was out in my wife's neighborhood, I wanted to run away from it. I don't want to live in a dirty, crowded, alienated, scary urban neighborhood. I had enough of that growing up -- it, too, is all too familiar. Some of the oldtimers in AA think I'm making a big mistake moving to LA, even though those who know me best think I'm doing the right thing.

Yet, staying sober and building a life in LA come down to the same things I need to stay sober and build a life here.

Avoiding isolation -- engaging in the community, and being open to being engaged by the people in the community.
Trusting in God -- even though I'm moving to a place and circumstance I never imagined myself in, a type of environment I consciously moved out of years ago, where I can't readily see God's purpose for me, I have to believe that God's purpose will be revealed.
Putting first things first -- my son deserves a father who is the best father he can possibly be, and I will not be happy and serene if I am not the best father I can be. The first priority is showing up. Where he is, that's where I must be.

Phil Hits Bottom

2005-03-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

The varieties of experiences "hitting bottom" are extraordinary. Some people go fast and hard, some young, some older. For me, it was a long, slow, inexorable descent.

Some people have said I had a "high" bottom -- whatever the hell that means. I heard a woman say her bottom was so bad, she didn't even make her bed every morning. To me, that sounds like a "high" bottom...

...but no bottom is "high" if you're the one sitting on it.

I like a couple things I've heard. Alcoholism is an elevator going down -- and you can choose to get off at any floor! Another guy put it this way: we need to raise the bottom to where we are.

What all the bottoms seem to have in common are the emotional and spiritual components. Whatever our outward circustances, we all seem to have shared complete emotional despair and spiritual bankruptcy.

There was a famous airline crash in 1989 that I've often thought of as a metaphor for me hitting my bottom. In mid-flight, a DC-10 lost all of its control surfaces: rudder, ailerons and elevators, along with the tail-mounted engine. The pilots, through ingenious improvisation, managed to keep the plane aloft, and contrived to steer by varying the thrust in each of the two wing engines. They were able to get the plane in position to attempt a landing at a deserted airport in Iowa.

There's a graphic, horrifying video of the final moments of the flight. (It was replayed endlessly on TV, but DO NOT click the link if you have any qualms about risking nightmares.) One of the remarkable things about the video is that as the plane approached the runway, by all appearances it looked like a normal, everyday landing of an airliner. I would never guess that anything was wrong, let alone that the plane was completely out of control.

And the plane almost made it. At the last moment, a wing dipped and hit the ground. The plane burst into flames, cartwheeled and broke apart, and burning wreckage careened down the runway for many long horrible seconds.

(As an aside, and where my metaphor breaks down: more than half the passengers and crew, including the pilots, survived that plane crash! The brilliant, heroic conduct of the flight crew has become a textbook case of "resource management" in handling a crisis aboard an airliner.)

By all outward appearances, there was not a serious crisis in my life. I had a job, a career, a home, a family. It looked like a routine flight, heading for what looked like a routine landing. In truth, I was out of control. It was only by ingenious improvisation (which we alcoholics are famous for) that I could maintain the appearance of routine normalcy, using every last ounce of my focus, attention and energy. My life was, actually, a highly stressful emergency, not at all a routine flight.

I feel like my long, slow, inexorable, out-of-control descent into alcoholism finally came to an end when I hit bottom last summer, like that plane hitting the runway at the end of its flight. Now I've got this flaming wreckage tumbling across the bottom. The old-timers tell me the first year or two of sobriety is hell -- I guess it takes that long for the wreckage finally to come to a stop, so rescue operations can begin in earnest.

Some days the best I can do is not drink for today, remember that I'm still in the wreckage, and trust God that this, too, shall pass.

CIHPARGOEG

2005-03-02T10:40:00.000-08:00

We accepted an offer for the house. So I'll be moving to LA in the next few weeks. I'm going, probably tomorrow, to find an apartment near my son's day care. (Also near where my wife tells me she's planning to move, again -- this would be her 8th residence in 7 months.)

I'm sure this is the right thing to do: simplify my life, be near my son, and let go of the broken dreams and painful memories (not to mention financial burden) of this house. It breaks my heart, though, and it gives me a feeling of failure.

It scares me, too. This feels like a "reverse geographic." All my resources for sobriety are here. I've just started going to a church where I feel a strong sense of belonging. Now I'm pulling everything up, and going to a new, unfamiliar town where I don't know anyone. I'm afraid it will be too much for me, and I won't stay sober.

Which is, of course, pretty silly: "Without help it is too much for us." My life is ALREADY more than I can handle, and has been for a very long time. Changing my location and my circumstances won't change that a bit.

My deeper fear, really, is that I will fail at what is motivating me to make this big move and big change: to be the best father I can be to my son. I'm moving so I can be with him and part of his day-to-day life. But I question my ability and willingness to do that, and to be a positive influence on him. My entire life is marked by isolation, irresponsibility, selfishness, laziness and giving up. These are not exactly the tools Ward Cleaver used as a father...

Even as I write these words and express these fears, I recognize that the answers are not hard to see. First, I need to stay sober today. (And tomorrow and the next day, but those are worries for tomorrow and the next day.) I need to find and attend meetings, lots of them, take commitments at them, and embed myself in the life of the fellowship in my new community. I need to find a church home, in the same way. I need to find a job.

Above all, I have to work the steps and apply them in all my affairs. I'm working my fourth step right now -- which is, of course, a real monster. My third step is hardly secure -- if it were, I would not be fearful of the changes I'm making in my life, or of my responsibilities to my son. I would, instead, embrace them with optimism and joy.

It's all a bit overwhelming. Especially since I feel insecure in my sobriety, impatient to "finish" my recovery, and I continue to fall into the insane idea that I have to handle and solve everything on my own with only my own resources. Sheesh... sometimes I feel like I've made no progress at all.

"Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines... We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection."

Willing to grow. Progress. Do not be discouraged.

I think maybe I'll go spend a few minutes reading, meditating and praying... :)

Knowledgable Walking Dead Man

2005-02-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

The Big Book study meeting last night, as usual, was right on target with where I am in my recovery. Here's what jumped out at me:

"(T)he actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge." (Emphasis in original)

This is on page 39 of the Big Book, in a discussion of relapse. It tells stories of guys who were sober, some for years, some who knew, without a doubt, they were alcoholic -- but got drunk again anyway. Just like I did after 4 months of sobriety.

It crystallized what I've been thinking since coming back in, six weeks ago: everything I know is wrong.

I've been kind of adrift and confused since coming back. I'm working my steps in a step workshop, I have become an active church member, I try to make prayer and spiritual reading and meditation part of my daily routine, I talk to my sponsor regularly... and above all, I go to a LOT of meetings. ("Not having time" for as many meetings was a BIG contributor to my relapse.) The deeper I get, though, the less clarity my poor old brain gets. At meetings, I never raise my hand to share, and when called on I babble incoherently about nothing of consequence.

What a difference from when I was an old-timer of 100-odd days, before going out! I had lots to share about, so much wisdom to offer about alcoholism and sobriety and the program! I was a "90-day wonder," one of the guys who understood it all right away, could quote the Big Book and 12X12, always raising my hand.

Why the change?

I was very confident before my relapse. Now, I recognize that everything I know is wrong. I was performing before. I was "sharing" what I thought everyone wanted to hear, to show off how well I was "getting it." Oh, yeah, my brain understood it all just fine. The only time any of it penetrated my heart and soul, though, was every now and then a little bit of real sobriety snuck up on me and jumped me when I wasn't looking! I was running on self-knowledge and self-will. A walking dead man.

Until that knowledge about sobriety and about the program migrates from my brain and into my heart, it is useless to me. It has no meaning and no effect on me and my sobriety when it's only in my brain. I recognize, now, that for me to talk about what I "know" only in my brain, is really just telling lies. For me to strive toward rigorous honesty within the fellowship, I have to speak from my heart, not from my brain. My brain tells me lies, and if I choose to believe the lies, I am incapable of telling the truth to anyone.

So now I try to stick with what is real and true, in my heart, when I share. And honestly, there ain't a whole lot there! What I have to share is pretty limited: I still think about drinking all the time, I feel little serenity, my self-will is continually resisting the program and fighting my higher power, I have all the makings of a chronic relapser, I'm scared and confused, I'm deeply grateful to be sober today, and deeply grateful to everyone in the fellowship for showing me what I need to do to stay sober, and for offering their experience, strength and hope that the promises can and will come true for me, eventually, if I don't drink today and I participate in my recovery. Not very impressive or inspiring stuff to be sharing at a meeting. The most positive thing I can honestly say is that I am trying to be willing, I pray for the willingness, to allow my higher power to guide me, every hour of every day.

I can't pretend to understand what I'm doing. I am doing what the people in the fellowship, and what Bill W, tell me I need to do to stay sober, even though it goes against everything I've "known" for 40 years. I have to take it on faith, and I have to fake it till I make it.

My sponsor tells me that building a life of sobriety is like rebuilding a house. First, I have to tear down the dilapidated old rats' nest, and clear away the wreckage. Then I repair the cracks and shore up the disintegrated parts of the foundation. Only then can I begin to build the new house with any hope that it won't collapse in the first storm.

The foundation, of course, is faith in God and willingness to submit to God's will:

"The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a higher power."

I'm sort of, kind of, fitfully, inconsistently, making a start on submitting to my higher power. The foundation is still buried under a lot of wreckage, though!

I believe, in one of those AA paradoxes, that I'm probably more secure than I was before, because I feel less secure and less self-confident. I'm a lot more sure than before that I can't depend on myself. Victory comes only through surrender.

Self-confidence, self-assurance, independence, self-reliance -- all of those things that this "Oprah-fied" world (as my sister calls it) values and tells me are the keys to happiness, that they told me in MBA school were necessities for success, that I've strived for and known for 40 years were the things I need -- are pure poison to me. For me to continue seeking these characteristics would be fatal. This is, believe me, real hard for me to get my mind around!

It has been pointed out to me that it's easier to behave yourself into right thinking than it is to think yourself into right behavior. (Sorry, friends in Rational Recovery!) So I try to allow my mind to be confused and baffled and adrift, and I try to allow my body to be guided from outside of me: by my sponsor, by the "winners" in AA, by the Big Book and 12X12, by the Bible, by my fellow spiritual seekers in my church -- by people, that is, who I trust are commited to understanding and following God's will. I'm hardly perfect, or even consistent, in doing this, but I'm trying to make a little progress and be a little more willing every day.

With practice and a willing heart, I hope and believe, I will have a growing understanding of God's will for me and increased ability to accept His gifts by carrying out His will. Even then, I will always have to seek guidance from others, in person or through books (or through blogs!) With time, though, I hope it becomes more natural, less confusing and less painful.

Until then, I will remind myself each day that everything I know is wrong, and if I really want to stay sober today I will ignore the lies my brain tells me.

Gratitude

2005-02-27T22:18:00.000-08:00

A great big THANK YOU to Kenny, Doughgirl, Grace, Trinker, and Logan for your comments and emails! You are like an online meeting for me, your support and encouragement, your experience, strength and hope, your gentle butt-kicks, give me what I need to stay sober. God bless you!

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If you are someone reading this who thinks you may have a drinking problem, may be an alcoholic, not too sure, maybe just a little doubtful your drinking is under as much control as you think it should be -- yes, YOU!! -- please read what these fine people have to say in their blogs. You will find that one of them, some of them, or all of them have something to say that resonates, that expresses things you do and ways you feel.

If you are in despair, lonely, suicidal, or are certain you are the only one in the world crazy enough to be in the hopeless fix you're in because of your drinking, then read what these fine people have to say. You are not alone! They are just a handful of the many people who know exactly how you feel and can show you a way to live without having to drink.

Here's the only commitment I ask of you: before you close this page, just click on one of the links in the first paragraph above, and see if that writer has something you want.

Still On The Run

2005-02-15T16:40:00.000-08:00

This isn't really about my recovery -- and it may qualify as self-pity, grandiosity, denial, delusion, resentment, or any number of my other character defects -- but it was a long drive home Sunday night and I just got to thinking...

I love my son so much, we had such a wonderful time together Sunday. At age 2½, he's very sensitive and expressive emotionally, he doesn't filter it. When my wife and I started getting into an argument, he started to cry. When she was in another room, he was happy playing with me. At one point my wife hugged me -- and our son was delighted, he came up and grabbed both our hands and said, "come on!" He wanted to go for a walk with both mommy and daddy, together. He is always happiest when he is with both of us, one hand in mommy's hand and one hand in daddy's hand.

I don't think he has a well-developed sense of past and future -- so when mommy and daddy are together with him, life is good. When mommy and daddy fight, or he’s separated from one or the other, life is bad. He is very clear about his "family values." He doesn't understand, or much care, why mommy and daddy aren't together and getting along. He simply wants us to be together and get along.

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I pretty much agree with him. There really aren't any excuses for the parents of a toddler to split up without making every effort at reconciliation. At this moment, I can barely stand being in the same room as my wife -- but I would move back with her and work hard to renew the relationship, with confidence that we could restore our love if we honestly commit to it and honestly work at it. I owe that to my son.

My wife always says her reason for leaving, and for staying apart, is my drinking: she didn't want to live with it, and she wanted to protect our son from it. That's a good reason, I can't deny it.

But it doesn’t add up.

I started at AA the day after she left the first time, and I took to it like a duck to water. This isn't how we calculate time in AA, but with the exception of two relapses totaling 38 days, I've been in recovery and sober for the 6½ months since she left.

So if my drinking really is the reason, I think a lot of spouses would take my effort seriously, stick around, and try to be supportive.

There's also this: when she left, she first went (and took our son) to her brother's -- who is an active alcoholic without any desire to recover.

And this: after she left the first time, she came back a month later. She stayed for six weeks, then left again -- and I was sober the whole time.

So, um, what precisely is the issue around drinking that is the problem...?

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My hypothesis is that my wife only knows how to function around active alcoholism, even though she genuinely hates alcoholism. She grew up in a typical wildly-dysfunctional alcoholic family: drunk dad, drunk sister, drunk brother, sexual abuse and rape, gunfire in the house, fistfights, smashed furniture. She had it all. No one, not a single person in her family, ever even tried to stop drinking.

She has never in her life lived in a household without active alcoholism.

My wife is stark raving codependent, IMHO. All the shame, fear, need to control, withdrawal into a fantasy world of grandiose dreams that will show everyone how great she is, always sure that "once this and that happen, then I'll finally be happy," and incapable of taking even the first step to make anything positive happen.

She has never acknowledged her codependence (and I sure as hell never saw it while I was drinking!). She's had endless hours of therapy, all kinds of medications -- all attempting to solve her misery by fixing something outside of herself.

While I was drinking, of course, I had all the same crazy fears, dreams, paranoia and incapacities she did, and medicated my misery with beer. We were two peas in a pod, comfortably reinforcing each other's insanity and misery, giving each other someone to blame.

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Then I came to the end of my run. I couldn't go on. A couple months before I stopped drinking, before I recognized "it's the alcohol, stupid," I knew my life was wrecked, the grandiose dreams were a sham, and I was going down the tubes. I realized my life was insanity.

My wife and I had a big fight -- I blamed her for everything, of course, for not doing her part to make our crazy dreams real, for the wreck our lives had become, for the chaos in our household.

We started seeing a counselor. My wife never budged from her position that there was one problem, and one problem only: my drinking. I was still drinking, still in denial of my alcoholism. I was, however, on the verge of "getting it."

One Tuesday, I had a separate session with the counselor about my drinking. I confidently agreed that I wouldn't drink until the following Tuesday, and if I couldn't make it, then I would acknowledge I have a problem and would get help for my drinking.

I told this to my wife, and she disappeared on Wednesday, leaving our son with me. She turned up briefly Thurday morning, picked up our son and disappeared again.

I got drunk on Thursday and Friday. I reluctantly started suspecting that I had a drinking problem and would have to talk seriously to the counselor about it the following week.

Friday night, my wife returned, with the cops and her alcoholic brother, grabbed some stuff, and she was gone.

Saturday I went to my first AA meeting and immediately knew I belonged there.

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So, what does this long story mean?

I think she decided to leave when we had the big fight, when she saw I had quit buying into the alcoholic/codependent insanity, that I knew I had to face reality, a month or so before I accepted that the core reality I had to face was my alcoholism. It's almost as though she could sense that I was about to begin recovery, and she had to get out before I stopped drinking. Without alcohol, what would there be to blame for her misery? And her misery was now at a whole new level, without a husband sharing, reinforcing and validating the insane thinking and living that are all she's ever known.

It means, I think, that I was finished with my run, but my wife is still on her run. I came in, and she's not ready to come in.

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My wife WANTS me to drink.

If I'm drunk, she can continue blaming me and my drinking for all her misery and everything that goes wrong in her life.

If I'm drunk, she can justify ignoring my input into raising our son.

If I'm drunk, she can convince herself that she's the "innocent victim" of her life.

If I'm drunk, she can avoid looking inside herself for solutions to her problems.

If I'm drunk, she can avoid the responsibility of doing her part to create a healthy, intact family for our son.

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She has grabbed on to my relapses like a drowning person grabbing a life preserver. Because I relapsed, she can convince herself that my recovery is not real, that any day I will go back to drinking, and stay drunk. My sobriety is her enemy, even though she hates alcoholism.

I hope my wife will start dealing with her codependence. Until she starts working a program she will be miserable and never find a solution, IMHO. Our son is a huge motivation to me to stay sober, and I hope he will finally motivate her to change her life.

Visit With My Son! :)

2005-02-14T18:07:00.000-08:00

I saw my son yesterday -- first time in a few weeks. His little face lit up so brightly when he saw me...

My wife had agreed early last week to me going to LA to spend time with the boy. By midweek, when I called to work out the details, she was saying, "I don't know if I want you taking him anywhere." After that she didn't answer my calls -- so by Sunday it was clear she didn't want me to come and wasn't expecting me. So I got in the car and went to LA anyway, and called halfway to let her know I was on my way (no answer, no response). She finally returned my call when I left a message that I was at her apartment, ringing her bell. She let me in, so I got to spend the day with my son.

My sponsor was coaching me a lot before the trip, not to let my wife draw me in to a fight. Turn the other cheek. A Bible verse to the effect that if you approach someone with love then love will be returned to you. Responding to her that I can't undo the past, I can only go forward from where I am. Don't bring up my resentments and what I feel she's done to me. Focus on my son -- the reason I'm there is to be with him, not to get into tangles with my wife.

I think I handled it pretty well. For instance, when she accused me, for the umpteenth time, of "abandoning" our son after she moved him to LA (!?!), I said the most natural thing in the world for me is to throw a brick right back at her, but it won't accomplish anything, it won't resolve anything, it won't create any common ground to build on, and it will only cause harm to our son. Every ten or fifteen minutes, it seemed, all day, she was throwing a brick at me. With just a couple exceptions, I didn't take the bait. Once, for instance, I pointed out that she has put obstacles in my way to be with our son -- such as moving him to another city (I didn't even bring up her "facilitation" of the very visit we were enjoying). "I didn't put obstacles in your way, I got a job and had to move to LA." I thought, but didn't say, that just because she's comfortable with her justification for making the obstacle, it doesn't mean the obstacle doesn't exist. AAARGH!!

So, I was thinking angrily, resentfully and destructively, but I was speaking and behaving constructively and positively. They tell me in AA that's what you have to do in early recovery (and "early" is often years!). Over time, once you get used to breaking the alcoholic habits of speaking and behaving, you start actually thinking better, too.

In the end, my wife thanked me for coming -- and asked me to spend the night with them (me sleeping on the couch, of course)! This, after refusing to plan the trip in advance... after I was half expecting her to call the cops when I showed up... Insanity. I didn't stay the night, needless to say. I never know what she will do next. She suggested we look together for apartments close together, so I can be near our son. But I'd be a fool to believe that means she wouldn't up and move to another city again, and want to take our son with her.

Well, I just have to cross each bridge as I come to it. One Day At a Time. First Things First. Keep It Simple. Let Go and Let God. And for once, I can look back on a day with a lot of tension and potential conflict, and feel that I didn't create new wreckage.

And it was SOOOOOO wonderful to be with my son!! :)

Out of Control

2005-02-06T17:55:00.000-08:00

It came to me in the shower this morning that I've completely lost control of my recovery and my program.

It then came to me that that's a good thing.

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The last week or so I've found myself feeling a lot of hostility and resentment toward people in my AA meetings -- a few I know well, including my sponsor, some I know a bit from chatting before and after meetings, some I merely recognize and know from what they share in meetings. I've been pissed off at them all: smug, self-satisfied, arrogant, sneering, know-it-all hypocrites (it seemed to me), giving me unsolicited, monumentally bad advice. "Well, my kids are in prison, my wife has been gone for years, I have no friends outside of AA, but I haven't had a drink in 20 years so you should do what I tell you." Or, "I don't have a driver's license, I live in a halfway house, and my kids refuse to have anything to do with me, but my last relapse was over two years ago so I know just what you need to do with your life." "You're a newcomer, I'm not, therefore you're an idiot and I'm a genius." These are the things I've been hearing (leaving aside whether they were actually said).

And don't even get me started about my scheming, greedy, self-absorbed, cynical, manipulative, unforgiving, hypocritical, untrusting, untrustworthy wife...

In AA, we call this "taking someone else's inventory," a reference to Step 4. I've been doing this for days. I've been through a period like it before in recovery, and I recognize it as dangerous ground for an alcoholic, but I haven't been able to stop. Yesterday I sought out a couple meetings I hadn't been to before, just to get out of this routine with the same familiar guys, get some fresh perspective, hear some new stories. (I know that, no matter what, I have to stick with AA -- Principles Before Personalities -- so NOT going to meetings is a suicidal option for me.)

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Meanwhile, I made the decision, over the past week, that it was time for me, in the language of my religion, to accept and welcome Christ into my life as my personal Lord and Saviour. [Bossco says, "Hurray!" ;)] I wasn't looking at it specifically as Step 3, but as a point in my spiritual journey that has become independent of, even though it was initiated by, my recovery from alcoholism in AA. The irony did not escape me that I had reached this point even while harboring decidedly un-Christ-like attitudes toward many of my fellow sinners. But I was getting reassurance from many sources that Jesus isn't looking for perfect people to follow Him -- and that I don't necessarily have to start voting Republican, loving guns or watching NASCAR -- just take the plunge and trust God.

So, in the shower, I was thinking, should I take the plunge in church today? And it suddenly struck me: I already have. In my heart, in my soul, in how I'm struggling to think and act, in where I look for guidance in what to do next.

It's only my intellect that hasn't caught up yet, hasn't figured out what it means, and why, and identified categories to make sense of it, and where are my halo and wings, and how can I say I have turned my life over to God when I haven't expunged every trace of doubt, when I am still a sinner, when I'm not PERFECT???

Oh, that alcoholic intellect! As we say in AA, "stinking thinking." God persuaded my heart to be just a little bit willing, gently nudged my beer-addled brain out of the way for just a little while, then barged in and took over while I wasn't looking!

And, clearly, obviously, God sailed me through Step 3 at the same time. I wasn't ready. My step workshop is only on Step 2 this week. Step 3 is the following week, God, will You kindly sync up with the timetable and work Your will according to my schedule!?!

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I blogged before my relapse that I struggle to cross these seemingly mountainous obstacles that are the steps -- then suddenly realize that I'm already across, and it really wasn't hard at all. I've maintained this illusion that each step is a summit I will reach through my own directed efforts. But so far, each step has happened TO me when I wasn't expecting it. The work and effort I put into it are certainly related to the outcome -- but only indirectly, there's never an expected outcome resulting from specific things I do.

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So, holy mackerel, here I am at Step 4, right here, right now, right in the shower. Until that moment, Step 4 was always at a comfortable distance in the future. And I remembered a remark an oldtimer made to me -- which I hadn't paid much attention to, because I was pissed off at the arrogant old know-it-all for something else he had already said -- after a meeting last week. "The characteristics we most hate in others are often the things that are our own worst character defects. So we can use those feelings and judgments we have about others, and test if we aren't holding up a mirror to ourselves."

And so that oldtimer's remark clicked right into place. I've already been working Step 4 without realizing it. All of these good people have been kindly holding up mirrors for me, to help me see clearly the character defects I have that I need to inventory. All I have to do is write down these judgments I've been making about all these people in the past couple weeks, and I'll have a pretty good start on the first 20 or 30 pages of my Step 4.

--------------------

I woke up this morning thinking I was working Step 2. I guess my Higher Power has His own plans. I'm not in control of it -- and thank God for that!

Waiting for the Helicopter

2005-02-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

I got this radical notion in my head last week...

Here I am, battling alcoholism; beset by family, financial and career crises; recognizing my character defects in action even as I exercise them on a daily basis, without being able to change my behavior. And I know that my core problem is spiritual: behind the mental obsession and physical craving for alcohol, alcoholism is a spiritual malady. I've been practicing prayer, meditation, seeking conscious contact with God -- but still feeling a bit like a fish on a bicycle.

Meanwhile, I recognized I need to face the maelstrom of grief, shame and anger from my marital separation and family collapse. A buddy in AA, also in his first year of sobriety and also going through divorce, had told me about DivorceCare, a small-group, Christian-centered program. He had done it at the nearby church where I had taken my son a few times. Perfect! It was at "my" church, a few blocks away; and it addressed both my needs: divorce support and spiritual connection.

So, I checked into it, and it had been a one-shot thing, they aren't running it right now and don't know when they will. Okay, no problem. This being southern California, McSaddleback churches are a dime a dozen -- DivorceCare doesn't appear to be one of the programs actually developed by Saddleback Church, but it's definitely part of the same orbit. Found one on the web, also nearby, runs DivorceCare every week, start any time. Perfect! Unfortunately, it had met the night before I discovered it.

That's when I got the radical notion: "Maybe I should go to church on Sunday." I could check it out, get more info, get squared away in DivorceCare and start rolling the following week. And I went to church on Sunday. The religious among you can predict what happened next.

I felt a lot like I did at my first AA meeting: I knew I had found a place where I belonged. The people around me were just like me, but somehow different in a way I couldn't grasp. They had something I wanted -- a joyful connection to their Higher Power. And I immediately started feeling a little bit of that connection, and my eyes kept tearing.

As it happened, they were kicking off the latest entree from the Saddleback menu: 40 Days of Community. The idea is that for six or seven weeks, small groups get together each week, view a video and have a guided discussion. Apparently this one also involves projects in the community. I had done 40 Days of Purpose, the Big Mac of Saddleback's franchise, a couple years ago, at another church where we baptized our son, and liked it a lot.

But it looked like too much for me. Sorry, guys, I've just commited to an 18-week AA workshop to work through my 12 steps from start to "finish," I'm going to do the DivorceCare thing, I have to stick close to my AA meetings, and also find a job, sell my house, find a place to live, and see my son regularly. This 40 Days of Community thing is great, but peripheral to my life and too much of a commitment. I filled out the guest card, and wrote that I want to do DivorceCare, and also participate in the church's next introductory class.

Yesterday I got an email from one of the pastors. "Sorry, we're putting DivorceCare on hold till April, because we're doing the 40 Days of Community. Do you want to join one of the groups for that?" (Nicer, of course, but that was the gist.)

Of course, I got pissed off and resentful. I felt like I'd walked in to McDonald's for breakfast at 10:05. "I'm sorry, we're not serving the DivorceCare side dish any more. Would you like to order something from the 40 Days of Community menu?" Sounded as good as a greasy cheeseburger in the morning. Excuse me that what I need right now is not the Special of the Week.

Well, I mulled it over. I thought about my experience with alcoholism and AA. I can't stay sober by myself, doing it MY way -- why should I expect a connection to God to be different? I didn't invent AA and I don't fully understand it -- why should church be different? AA suggests that I do things that make no sense to me, and I feel like an idiot doing them, but so often they click after awhile and I realize I've suddenly got a tool in my hand that I didn't realize I was crafting -- why should I expect God to reach out to me differently in other areas of my life? I need the fellowship and human connection of AA to stay sober, because sitting around just thinking about staying sober does nothing to keep me from drinking -- why would my spiritual life be a solitary, cerebral pursuit? In AA, they tell me that my Higher Power won't always give me what I ask for, but will always give me what I need -- and on some level I've always understood that God is not Santa Claus. AA tells me I have to put my recovery program into action -- why would I expect to be able to open myself to God in my life differently?

And I wrote back to the pastor and accepted the invitation. For once I am going to accept a gift that God is handing to me, rather than refuse it because it isn't what I asked for. I simultaneously felt I was consciously submitting to God's purpose: obeying God. That's a concept I never thought of before: Obedience to God's will is the same thing as accepting the gifts that He freely gives me. Wow! Is it always that simple?

I feel a little bit like Joan of Arcadia -- "You want me to do WHAT!?! What does THAT have to do with anything!?! Well, okay, if You say so..."

I also feel a bit like the man who was caught in a flood. As he sat on the roof of his house, two men came by in a boat to rescue him, but he waved them away saying, "The Lord will save me." The water continued rising. Another boat came along. Again the man insisted, "The Lord will save me." As the flood water covered the roof, up to the man's knees, a helicopter arrived -- but the man shouted, "The Lord will save me." The water rose more, and the man drowned. At the gates of heaven he asked St. Peter, "Why didn't The Lord save me?" St. Peter's eyebrows rose as he replied, "We sent a boat. Then we sent another boat. And we sent a helicopter. What more do you want!?!"

So, maybe this time, I'm not waiting for the helicopter.

I Surrender

2005-01-25T21:29:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've ever felt worse, whether drunk or sober. I finally went to my sponsor Saturday, and told him I was lost and didn't know what to do. I actually asked my Mom for advice. Sunday I did the same with my sister. I can't remember the last time I asked people for advice.

The outcome was, I've bit off more than I can chew. I've held onto my house, which I can't afford, and is too big for me to handle, is literally cluttered with "wreckage of my past," and is full of memories of my collapsed family. I've held onto my real estate business dream, that started as a dream that my wife and I would work as a team together. I've held onto them because I haven't been willing to let go emotionally, to move on and start making my own decisions for the reality I now face.

I have to give up the house and the career, and the dreams they represent. I have to surrender them, as part of the past, and the self-will that has made me hang onto them for too long. I have to trust in an unknown future in God's hands.

I'm selling the house. I've left my mortgage broker desk, and yesterday and today I've polished up my resume and started applying for jobs with a regular paycheck. I'm going to move to a studio apartment I can afford, convenient to the AA meetings I need to attend. I need a job that will pay my expenses, allow me to send my wife money to support our son, and afford regular frequent trips to LA to see my son, without me going into debt. I need a regular, predictable work schedule, so I can have time for my meetings, set aside regular time to work on my steps, and regularly and predictably spend time with my son. Keep It Simple. Beyond that, I will have to wait to see what God reveals in His own time. And I have to keep reminding myself that these are objectives I'm working toward, not necessarily a destination that God intends me to reach!

My sobriety is not strong. I pray that, sooner rather than later, I will have the resources to accept and handle the combination of setbacks and challenges I’ve had, without fear, with hope and faith – and without an urge to drink. I’m not there yet. In order to move forward, both in solidifying my sobriety, and in rewiring my brain (which are actually the same thing), I need to focus on my priorities and eliminate other stressful things that pull me away from my priorities. First Things First.

It breaks my heart to go through the emotion of giving up these things. I’m feeling a lot of grief. I’m afraid of starting over, again, in a studio apartment and a temp job without benefits. Hopefully I’ll at least start out without debt after selling the house, but basically I’ll be starting again with nothing. I feel ashamed, and I feel that I’ve failed – failed my wife, failed my son, failed myself. I feel stupid for making choices about the house and my job in the past few months that, it seems clear now, were the wrong ones. I pray that God is merciful, rather than just.

Thank God I went back to AA and recovery within three weeks, before I caused too much damage, before it got out of control. I did not lose the benefit of my recovery so far – I know what kept me sober for as long as I was, and I learned a few of the things I need to do in addition, to keep my sobriety. I have been praying, on my knees, every morning, asking God for His protection and guidance through the day, to show me His will for me and give me the strength, at each moment, to carry it out; and every night, thanking Him for being with me, keeping me sober, and asking forgiveness for my sins and failures to do His will. And I ask His blessings and peace for my wife, for my son, my family and friends, and myself.

The prayer and seeking conscious contact with God do not come naturally to me. I struggle with my belief and faith. Often I’m just going through the motions. Sometimes I feel like an idiot. And yet, I can feel my brain trying to rewire itself. I will not stop doing it. I have hope that it will begin to come naturally to me, that my brain will eventually rewire itself, that my heart and spirit will open up, that my decades-old habits of desperate, miserable hubris, self-will and avoidance will finally be replaced by humility and obedience to God, and the courage and pride that can come only from God. I desperately want it. I want to live in God’s light, and never be driven again by my isolated, fearful self-will. I’m tired of living in a hell that I design and build myself.

"Abandon Yourself to God"

2005-01-22T10:05:00.000-08:00

"Abandon Yourself to God."

I've been going to a noon meeting every day, a new meeting for me. Each day the meeting closes with the concluding passage of the Big Book, before the personal stories (not a typical tradition in my town).

These words struck me. I know I have to "let go and let God," get myself out of the way, surrender, "turn my will and my life over to God." I have to turn my fear over to God, "do the next indicated thing" and let God handle the outcomes. Faith=Belief+Trust+Action.

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

"We asked His protection and care with complete abandon."

Why is it so hard for me to do this? Why can't I let go absolutely, abandon myself to God's care, God's will, God's purpose? I want, more than anything, to let go. I want to live, I want to live in the light of God, to be an instrument of His peace.

Yet I am still tangled up in the hell I have designed and built for myself.

Please, God, show me your way!

Fear

2005-01-20T18:07:00.000-08:00

I made it back in. I was out until Sunday. I don't think I got drunk more than 8 or 10 times, but another day or two and I think I would have been lost for a long time. I was back to the same despair, suicidal, feeling of worthlessness, regrets, shame, the works. Tonight I'm going to my 11th meeting since Sunday.

I've asked myself if this blog was part of what led me to relapse. As long as I use it to express myself to myself, and not as a substitute for meetings and other contact, maybe there's no harm. That's what I'm trying right now.

The overwhelming feeling I've had is fear. I started my job as a mortgage broker. I have to sell at least two loans to close in February, or I'll be let go. It's 100% commission, so I'll also be broke. I'm deep in debt, tapped out. I'll have to sell the house, which I had wanted to hold onto for my son. But, since he's in another city with my wife now, it makes no sense to keep it. I hate the house, actually, and I want to sell it. But the market is weak and I prefer to wait for the spring nudge so I can get something from it other than repaying the mortgage. I'm counting pennies and sweating bullets.

I've explained to my wife that I don't have any money to send, but she keeps telling me I have to send her money, I have an obligation. I know I have an obligation, I want to support my son, and as soon as I have some money I'll send it. I simply don't have any money. Why can't she understand that? Besides, what happened to the $20,000 cash she had two months ago???

Anyway, my fear -- I fear the consequences of failure, but at the same time I have to face my fear of getting on the phone to talk to people, to sell, that I need to do to succeed. That has always been hard for me -- indeed, I've never succeeded at sales. I know I can do this, it really is what I want to do, yet I get tangled up in my own fears and what-ifs and insane sense that I deserve to fail, I'm worthless and whoever I'm talking to will know it instantly and have contempt for me. (Needless to say, that's never what actually happens.) I'm not one of these telemarketing mortgage dudes -- these are people I've talked with face-to-face, and they want to talk to me! Yet the fear and insanity remain...

And I've learned -- had to learn, very quickly -- a whole other dimension of "one day at a time," and how it relates to Step Three, where I slammed into the resistance of my self-will before going back out. One day at a time isn't just how I don't drink -- it's how I have to live my life. I have to turn my will and my life over to God every minute of every day, and let His power control my thoughts, my words, my actions. It's the only way I can push my self-will aside -- the self-will that drives me to despair, failure, uselessness, and paralysis by worry about the future -- so that my mind, my body and my mouth do, right now, the things I need to do so that I can get myself back on my feet. If I can quit worrying about what will or won't or might or might not happen in the future, I can be free to do the right thing today, and let God take care of the future. Otherwise I will procrastinate until I am assured of failure.

It's a very difficult thing for me to do. I've spent a good part of the last couple days procrastinating. Again, I'm trying to forget about that, too. All I have is right now. I know what I need to do in the next 24 hours. I pray that God will guide me, my words, my thoughts, my actions, and take away my fears and protect me from my self-will, so that I can and will do the things that He wants me to do.

LaLaLand

2004-12-30T22:07:00.000-08:00

My wife got a job, which is good -- in LA, which is bad. That's 3 hours from here, if traffic is okay. She's taking the boy with her, which will make me a McDonalds-on-weekends dad, which I do NOT want to be. I have to be a part of his everyday life, to be the father I want to be.

So, if she keeps this job -- it would be the first time in her life -- I will have to move to LA, to be near my son. I have never, ever wanted to live in LA. I have to put some time in and make a good income in my new job for a few months before I move. And give my wife a few months in her job to make sure she will stick with it.

But I have to be near my son. Wherever he is, that is where I have to be.

I'm Phil, Alcoholic

2004-12-29T07:18:00.000-08:00

What will really suck is raising my hand as a newcomer again at my AA meetings.

My sponsor will be really disappointed -- and I already know exactly what he will say. He knows... he went back out after 8 years sober and landed in jail for almost a year. I'll have the same story everyone else has: "Well, I stopped going to meetings as often as I had before, and then... and then... and then..." And he'll start me back at step one. Shit.

I HATE being alcoholic. I wish, so much, I were like normal people. I have to go to these fucking meetings, I have to tear down my entire personality, I have to turn my whole life over to God, I have to make a conscious decision every minute of every day to do God's will instead of Phil's will. Merely to survive. I HATE this.

Why can't my spiritual life be a choice? Why can't my belief in God be something about ethics, and a comforting notion of eternal life in heaven when I die? Why does it have to be a matter of life and death, right here and right now? Why me? What did I do to deserve this curse from God, this hell of addiction?

Why does this have to be so hard? Why isn't there a fucking pill I can take to cure it?

Now I have a 30-day and a 90-day token that mean nothing. I guess what I'll have to do is hang onto them until I get new ones, and pass along my old ones to a newcomer who earns his first 30 and 90 day honors.

I HATE this. Every fucking minute of it.

I'm Drunk

2004-12-28T20:48:00.000-08:00

Back to square one.

No serenity, no sobriety, nada, nothing...

I got drunk tonight. Just had to do it.

Why?

Back to Reality

2004-12-27T21:23:00.000-08:00

Back home in California... great Christmas with my family in Chicago... my son had a WONDERFUL time... start a new job tomorrow...

My son and I shared a bed at my Mom's. I never did that before. It really was wonderful, I felt so close to him, cuddling to keep each other warm, just watching him sleep... except for the night he was all wound up and kept wanting to get out of bed! :)

It's disorienting to be back. Especially without my wife. I spoke with her on the phone at least once a day, so she could talk to our son. At least a dozen times we discussed that I will drop him off at her place tomorrow morning on my way to work. This morning she told me she was planning to be out of town until sometime tomorrow afternoon -- she "forgot" about our arrangements. And got pissed off at me over it.

Aside from wondering why she wouldn't be more eager to see her son after a week -- this kind of chaos is part of what I want to eliminate from my life. Recovery, to me, includes stability, dependability, counting on other people and having other people able to count on me. I want my son to grow up in an environment with all this good stuff.

I miss having a complete family, a single household with all three of us. But I sure don't miss the reality of trying to maintain a household with a wife who is bipolar, unpredictable, irresponsible, undisciplined, undependable, chaotic, whose word means nothing. If I get back together with her I'll just be setting myself up for disappointment, disillusionment, and eventually bitterness and cynicism. All the stuff there was before she left. All the stuff that undermines serenity.

It's going to be hard enough just trying to maintain a regular, civilized schedule for my son. That seems to be the best that I can hope for from my wife -- and even that will be a stretch for her.

I Want Serenity, and I Want It Now, Damn It!

2004-12-22T21:38:00.000-08:00

I've been "coasting" in my recovery lately. It's been almost a week since my last meeting. In some ways I'm on a dry drunk -- kind of isolated, kind of letting the everyday things in life slide by. On the other hand, in some ways I've been like a "normal" person -- fixed the washing machine (a real miracle!), got a job which I will start right after Christmas. Sometimes I work the program, sometimes the program works me!

I've had my hands full with my son, for one thing. For the most part, I've been patient with him and he's had a good time, but I always feel I woulda coulda shoulda done more with him and for him. He and I are leaving tomorrow for Christmas in Illinois with his Grandma and Grandpa. I've gotten as far as Googling AA meeting locations and times near Mom's house and Mapquesting directions. Next on the agenda is to pack. :) First things first...

My Mom's husband is in the program, coming up on his first year token in a couple months. I'm looking forward to going to a meeting or two with him.

I always feel uncomfortable with these "coasting" periods. I'm very aware that they can easily become complacency, the slippery slope to relapse. Mostly I get impatient. I want to make progress and move forward, and I get resentful when people, places, things and events pull me away from working it -- but I especially resent when it's my own brain, bad attitude, and "committee" thinking that holds me back. It's hard not to be hard on myself -- hard to accept that I'm on God's time, not Phil's schedule. I want serenity, and I want it now, damn it!

Toddlers and Blackouts

2004-12-20T09:53:00.000-08:00

My son, age 2½, was with me and the two cats from Thursday till last night. Life with a two-year-old boy and two one-year-old cats is similar to waking up from an alcoholic blackout several times a day. Why are all the bathtub toys in the living room? Where did that pair of pliers come from, I haven’t seen it in months? Where has every doorstop in the house disappeared to? How did the telephone get in the refrigerator?

Abstinence vs. Recovery

2004-12-18T11:53:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice, succinct distinction between abstinence and sobriety I came across on the web. It's a pretty good, non-partisan site -- including some resources for those uncomfortable with Twelve Step support groups.

(Personal advice: be careful with the non-Twelve Step approaches. The ones I've seen seem to be based on a rejection of AA, in response to what, to me, are misinterpretations and/or caricatures of the AA I'm familiar with. In other words, they do not start with an original view of alcoholism or fresh approach to recovery -- they are embedded in the context of AA. They seem to define themselves as "not-AA." The parts of them that make sense to me are really just different terminology and different emphasis for the same stuff AA offers. Anyone who wants to recover has to go through pretty much the same process, whatever you want to call it, IMHO!)

"Abstinence from alcohol & drug use on the one hand and recovery from alcoholism & addiction on the other represent two very different states. Sometimes the boundaries between the two become blurred, but they're definitely there. Read on...

Some alcoholics and addicts become abstinent but do not enter recovery. Abstinent, but not recovering, alcoholics and addicts show the following attitudes and behaviors:

They maintain abstinence from alcohol and drugs because to drink and/or use again would most likely cause more problems.

They don't enjoy being sober and clean, miss getting high, and feel disappointed in or angry about being abstinent.

They maintain abstinence through will-power and believe that strong will-power is adequate for continued abstinence.

They would like to drink and/or use again and would do so if reasonably sure that prior problems would not recur.

Some alcoholics and addicts are not only abstinent but also in recovery. Recovering alcoholics and addicts show the following attitudes and behaviors:

They maintain abstinence from alcohol and drugs because to drink and/or use again would compromise the quality of life found in sobriety.

They enjoy being sober and clean and feel grateful for sobriety.

They utilize resources instead of or in addition to will-power to maintain sobriety and to learn healthier ways to think, feel, and act.

They have no desire to drink or use again and would not do so even if reasonably sure that problems would not recur.

The bottom line is this:

Make no bones about it; moving out of alcoholism & addiction, through abstinence, and into recovery does not happen by accident or by magic. It requires time, patience, and above all - action."

From AlcoholAndDrugAbuse.com

Sobriety in Everyday Living

2004-12-17T20:37:00.000-08:00

I got a new job. I've essentially been unemployed for a few months, though I cut a deal with my last employer that wanted to get rid of me, so I was still on the payroll but didn't have to show up.

This job is a career change for me. Another career change. This is roughly my fourth career in the past 25 years. The first three careers weren't what I wanted. Why not? Well... the problem with them was always everyone but me, and everything but my drinking.

So why should I think I will succeed in this job? Well, this time I'm not thinking about "succeeding" in it. One big change is that I will be showing up for work without a hangover, and with adequate sleep, every day. If it is God's purpose for me to "succeed" in this job, and I do my part by doing "the next indicated thing" each day, then it will go well. If I don't do my part, I will fail. If God's purpose actually lies elsewhere for me, that will become clear on God's timetable, whether this job goes well or not.

One nice thing -- a signal from God perhaps? -- is that there's an AA meeting every day at noon two blocks from the office.

So, when I get back home after Christmas, I'll be starting a new job. It will impose some badly needed structure on my daily routine that has been lacking since I started my recovery. The timing is good: I don't think I was far enough in my recovery before now to be able to handle the demands of a new job. Besides, I'm starting to run out of money... :)

I structured my routine primarily around AA meetings for the first weeks of my recovery. Since my wife left me the second time, we've been splitting the time our toddler son spends with each of us. I haven't had the boy on a regular schedule yet, and it's thrown my routine into chaos that I haven't been able to organize.

He's a demanding child at this stage of his development, and mommy and daddy's split has been hard on him. I find it hard to have the patience and strength to care for him as well as I should and want to. I haven't been able to look for work, maintain the house, work my recovery program, and pay adequate attention to him. Which, of course, makes me feel guilty, inadequate and incompetent. (Alcoholics, I'm told, are prone to perfectionism, and shame when they are less than perfect -- who, me???) The past few weeks my priorities have been:

Finding work
Working my program
Spending time with my son
Household stuff

So you can imagine what the house looks like...

Once I start work my son will be in day care (guilt, guilt) regularly. I'll have even less time to balance my son, household stuff and my program.

It's pretty clear my recovery program must come first. As I wrote the other day, I'm working Step Three. One result of Step Three that I anticipate is putting into action God's purpose for me each day. In concrete terms, that's doing what I need to do each hour of each day. I need to look to God to organize and schedule my day.

If I work my program, step by step, everything else will fall into place.

Measurements, Half-Measures and Other Lies

2004-12-16T20:45:00.000-08:00

My attitude about statistical studies of success rates for AA vs. other programs vs. no program has changed since starting my own recovery. In the past, I used these studies as a way of defending my denial of my own alcoholism. I latched on to studies showing AA had a failure rate worse than no program at all, that well over 90% of those who attempt to stay sober in AA in fact drink again. I saw programs that teach you to drink in moderation (not that I ever tried them). I've seen arguments that AA is dying, membership is declining. I've seen some hostile debunking of AA on the web -- the most notorious, apparently, is The Orange Papers.

I was very interested in these studies -- they still are fascinating to me. There are a couple methodological problems with any study of alcoholic behavior, though:

Measuring "successful" recovery from a chronic condition like alcoholism is tricky.
Alcoholics lie.

The second problem is obvious. The first one bears some discussion. The most common measure of success is 90 days of sobriety after starting the program. By that measure, I am a "failure": I relapsed for a couple weeks in my first thirty days, then started over and here I am. Almost everyone I know in AA is a "failure" by that measure. And people know it, too. One lady likes to introduce herself when sharing as one of the handful of "successes," who came in and never relapsed after joining the first time. On the other hand, there are people in AA who were "successes" for many years -- until they went out and got drunk, and had to come back in and start over. God knows how many alcoholics are now miserable drunks, or dead, because after a time of "success" went out and got drunk and never came back.

In any case, is AA the only way for anyone to stay sober? Probably not. Is it the only way for me to stay sober? Probably. Most of us in AA have no desire to try to stay sober outside of AA. We LIKE AA. We like the fellowship. We like how it changes us inside. We're happier in AA than we ever were outside AA, drunk or sober. The alternative, to us, is to try to "white knuckle" ourselves dry through self-will -- and that sounds like hell, a miserable way to live, if we can do it at all.

Drink in moderation? Yeah, right. All of us have tried that a million times. Just another half-measure.

I have to say some more about The Orange Papers. I'm not going to try to argue with the guy. He's a lot smarter than I am, his volume is prodigious, and his intelligence has been honed to a razor point by obsessive, angry, righteous self-will. In other words, he's off on a hell of a dry drunk.

I don't know why he hates AA so much. I'm fascinated by him, though, because he's an object lesson in alcoholic thinking. To paraphrase: The Big Book means the opposite of what it says. Bill W was an insane, manipulative, self-aggrandizing cheat. AA is a fascist cult. AA doesn't work for everyone, therefore it's a dangerous fraud. All we care about is winning converts. We cease thinking and do whatever AA commands us to do. Some old-timers are angry and bitter, and some guys sponsor nubile female newcomers just to 13th-step them (in my town, we only sponsor the same sex we are -- I can just hear my sponsor if I told him I wanted to sponsor a woman), therefore we are all cynical fakes. And so on.

Yeah, AA does sound a bit like a cult, on the surface. We're a bunch of true-believers, we have a book, we have a lot of slogans. If it is a cult, though, it's the lousiest-run one there ever was. No one is in charge. No one tells anyone else what they have to do. No one gets thrown out. No one is forced into it. No one seems to be really sure how or why the hell it seems to work. Above all, no one tells anyone else what, if anything, they ought to believe or believe in. Some cult.

Most old-timers, far from acting like "elders," are just in awe of it; they don't pretend to have all the answers, other than "my program that works for me would be suicide for you, and vice versa." Most of us have a sense of gratitude that we are among the lucky few who have been able to stay with AA long enough for the miracle to happen. Is AA membership declining? I don't know, maybe it is. Is AA dying? Not a chance!

I particularly get a kick out of his rage at courts sentencing DUI malefactors to AA meetings. To him, this is unconstitutional, and a result of the insidious AA conspiracy infiltrating the court system to win converts and swell the ranks of AA. My God -- these guys with the court slips are so happy to sit through a few meetings instead of go to jail! And you know what? Some of them stick around and get sober and happy -- not because anyone forces them to, but because they choose to stay.

Fascist? Follow this: AA grew out of The Oxford Group, founded by Paul Buchman, an American Lutheran minister, who wanted to change society by reaching out to and transforming the social, economic and political elite of a community, and then the changes would "trickle down" to the ordinary folks. That's what Buchman thought would work. So, in the 1930's he attempted to implement it on a big scale by trying to get through to Hitler and thereby transform German society. Buchman was criticized roundly by the likes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran minister who opposed Hitler and died in a concentration camp. So, the argument goes, Buchman wanted to communicate with Hitler in the 1930s, therefore AA is fascist.

But wait... why did Bonhoeffer criticize Buchman? Not because Bonhoeffer thought Buchman was a Hitler sympathizer, or fascist, or Nazi, but because he disagreed with Buchman's tactics: Bonhoeffer believed (rightly, we now know) that Hitler was beyond reach, beyond change, and could only be opposed.

The connection of Buchman with AA is academic, anyway. Did you know Up With People was an offshoot of The Oxford Group, too? (It's true!) Therefore everyone in AA wants to wear pullover sweaters and perform clean-cut up-beat pop songs at half-time of the Orange Bowl...

Well, I've gone on too much about The Orange Papers. Read it yourself and make your own judgment. If the guy gets wind of this, I imagine he'll respond in his angry, superior way and rip me to shreds with his logic. Poor bastard.

Milestones and Mountains

2004-12-15T21:39:00.000-08:00

Each milestone I come to seems to follow a pattern: I work on something my sponsor assigns me; I wrestle with it, stress over it, struggle to figure it out; my sponsor says stuff about it, other guys say stuff about it, and I nod blankly and incomprehendingly; then it suddenly all clicks -- "Oh, now, I get it! It's exactly what you've been telling me, and it's really, really simple!"

The first milestone was the first AA meeting I went to, and I knew immediately I belonged there. Another was getting a sponsor and starting to work the steps -- slowly, thoroughly, "in God's time" as my sponsor said. As a typical alcoholic, the first thing I had wanted to do was complete all Twelve Steps, on my own, in an afternoon, finding every shortcut and loophole to skate, fake and bluff my way through them. So even though, in a simple way, I took Step One instantly, it took awhile to really internalize it and accept the full implication of what it means to be an alcoholic.

A big one was getting through my first Big Craving without a drink, without putting up a fight, simply by surrendering -- I mentioned it in my last post. That was internalizing Step Two for me -- I can't clearly define my higher power, but there is something other (and bigger) than me that keeps me from making the insane choice to drink -- and that bigger, higher power is using my program, including meetings, step work and my sponsor, to do its work. Very simple -- I just have to get the hell out of the way and let the higher power do it.

Now I'm working on Step Three. Like many alcoholics, I find the "God stuff" irritating, intimidating, and uncomfortable. Having been raised in one of the softer, easier mainline Protestant denominations, my decision to walk away from religion and spirituality many years ago did not require a very long hike. And of course I intellectualize, rationalize and complicate the whole issue of God's purpose vs. my purpose, who or what do I understand God to be in every facet...

But another bolt-from-the-blue milestone came at a speaker meeting on Thanksgiving. The speaker said she found Step Three easy, never had the struggle of "my will vs. God's will" so many of us have, it was all pretty obvious to her. I was startled at first -- easy? Obvious? After mulling it over a bit, I realized she was absolutely right.

It almost always is obvious what God's will is for me -- it's right there in my conscience that I've tried to ignore all these years. I almost always know what I should do in any concrete situation. Usually, of course, I do otherwise. Why would I do the right thing when someone else will, or may, not? At the very least, no one will appreciate it properly. Besides, in the long run, what difference does it make? And, how can God allow things like the Holocaust, or 9/11, or the Tutsi genocide if He is benevolent and omnipotent, and therefore why should I believe my "doing the right thing" makes any difference?

Interesting theological questions, and maybe fodder for PhD dissertations on game theory in ethics, but utterly irrelevant to my own personal responsibility. My conscience is God telling me, usually quite clearly, the next indicated thing I should do. (And it can be as mundane as God whispering in my ear, "do laundry.") It has nothing to do with how other people will respond, appreciate me, or act themselves -- that's up to them and God, not to me. And the larger questions of God allowing evil in the world -- I will never understand it, I simply have to accept that God's overall purpose is and will remain beyond my comprehension. I have my hands full trying to understand God's purpose for me.

I feel like I'm making a good start understanding Step Three intellectually, just as I made a good start on Step One the minute I stepped into a meeting. But I can feel I'm not there yet. Step Three is about action. It's where I really start behaving differently. I've become much more aware of what "the next indicated thing" I should do is, but I have continued to be unlikely to act on it. Until I'm willing to try -- not perfectly, but consistently -- to act in accord with my understanding of God's purpose, Step Three is beyond my grasp.

Right now, Step Three looks like a very high and steep mountain. But I'm starting to learn the lessons of taking the first two steps -- they looked like high and steep mountains ahead of me, too. Then one day I suddenly realized that I was already across, and they weren't that bad after all!

104 Miracles

2004-12-13T22:10:00.001-08:00

I've been sober for 104 days.

I'm active in AA. I did at least 90 meetings in my first 90 days; I have a sponsor I talk to regularly, but not every day; I'm working the steps; I take commitments as a meeting leader. So I'm doing okay...

Like most newcomers, my life is chaos. I periodically retreat into my alcoholic isolation, depression, etc. Fairly regularly I get the insane urge to drink. I don't read the Book regularly, haven't cultivated a conscious contact with my higher power, haven't frequented BB/12X12 study meetings. So there's a lot I'm not doing -- which probably explains the lack of peace and serenity in my life! :)

But I haven't had a drink. And that, my friends, is due to nothing but a miracle every day for 104 days. When my wife left again (when she left the first time, I stopped drinking for the first time, picked up again after a couple weeks, then came back in after a couple weeks; she returned a few days after I stopped drinking again), I had been sober about six weeks. I had been going to meetings, talking to my sponsor, taking some stabs at working the steps -- kind of trying to do what was suggested, but not really knowing what the hell I was doing.

That day she fled again, I had a powerful urge to pick up a 12-pack or two. But before I could act on the notion, what popped into my head was, "I'll wait till tomorrow... this, too, shall pass." And I didn't drink that day. I was euphoric the next morning when I woke up, that I had another day. I realized that day, that all the time I didn't know what I was doing, I was working a program of recovery -- and damned if it wasn't working!

Oh, I've had the insane urges since then. But what I had learned was not to fight it. I had internalized Step One: I am powerless over alcohol, and any attempt I make to fight it with my own will power is futile. Simultaneously, the program kicked in with its slogans, and kept me from drinking. I had internalized Step Two: a higher power can restore me to sanity -- and my higher power works, in part, through the program and fellowship of AA.

I'll never forget that realization, what a relief it was. I never have to get drunk again, and I don't ever have to fight the urge to drink again. What a tremendous burden was lifted from me!

But....

It isn't free.

My part is not to take care of the drinking -- my higher power, my program, and AA take care of the alcohol. My part is to completely renovate my spiritual life and my personality, how I relate to and behave with other people and with God. That's all! :)

"What an order! I can't go through with it!" Sometimes it seems like a daunting task. Some of the "Book nazis" and hard core true believers make it sound hard, that you have to adhere to rigid rules, that deviations are apostasy. Most of the oldtimers -- including Bill W in the 12X12 -- are very reassuring that it really isn't that hard. Progress, not perfection.

It's worthwhile to do. Already, this whole recovery thing is only incidentally about alcohol for me. Alcohol is simply a symptom of my spiritual malady. If I make spiritual progress -- even just a little bit each day -- I will increasingly find serenity, peace and happiness in my life. If I make progress, the alcohol will take care of itself, so to speak, and I won't relapse.

If I don't make progress, if I allow myself to believe the illusion that I can "stand still" in my program, put it on hold for awhile, then I'm headed for relapse. Because I really cannot stand still -- if I'm not moving forward, then I'm relapsing. I may not reach the point in my relapse of drinking today, but I may tomorrow, or the next day, or next month. If I stop making progress, I will, inevitably, inexorably, eventually have a drink, and if I have a drink I will get drunk. And once I get drunk I won't be able to stop until, at best, I am miserable and suicidal again.

God bless you all, and God bless each alcoholic who still suffers.