Daily Reprieve

To the pale moon’s pain

To the bright sun’s fame

I will leave

I will turn my back from your glory

I’ve pulled myself out of this deliverance

I’ve gotten past your good sense

Now that I’ve found it

Now that my heart has already split

To night’s ceaseless cry

To day’s caring reply

I will take another path

This was always your story to tell

So tell it good man

And let love befall you again

Let pain forget you

For that is my place

To harness the dark thoughts that you have abandoned

To live in the shadows that you have fled

Your life will be a legend

My life will be a shadow

But never forget

I have decided

And you have not

A poem by Elizabeth Morgan

“I will take another path…” That is really resounding within.

What does the empowerment of this program look like? I finally made it back to a meeting tonight, and I heard this one individual proclaim the positive aspects of the empowerment of this program. The evidence that he offered from his own life was the ability to return to college and get several degrees, to get the accountant’s degree, and to graduate in the top 5% of his law class. He now heads off to take the bar exam.

I guess he is saying that empowerment for him is being all he can be, without dependence on chemical crutches.

Is it possible for pride to cause me to miss the message of the spiritual paradox of powerlessness. Or maybe it is just some need in me to argue.

Has my Higher Power enabled me to drink or use without any serious consequences, to use it for the same reasons normal drinkers do? The Big Book doesn’t appear to say that.  I have heard this individual criticize others in the meetings for using the concept of powerlessness as a misguided attempt to abdicate responsibility for living.  Yet I do agree that folks seem motivated by a religious undercurrent that seems to cause them to claim they cannot do anything positive and that they remain a broken vessel miraculously used of their Higher Power. To me, this appears to be a desperate attempt to bring glory to the Higher Power.

So again, what sort of empowerment are we expecting from this program. I would expect that first of all it is sobriety.  But there is also an ability to intuitively hear your Higher Power according to page 87.  The authors claimed to rely on this for clarity and guidance.  We are supposed to be changed from creatures that live in a three dimensional universe to those who have gone through a vital spiritual experience producing a complete psychic change, that rockets us into the 4th dimension of existence. I understand the three dimensions to be length, width, and depth. What then is number four. This transformation can be an invigorating lightning bolt of divine ecstasy or an oozing molasses of educational awareness.  We will enjoy a supernatural fellowship with others we would normally not associate with.  We will have naturally developed an altruistic lifestyle.

When someone boldly touts the empowerment of this program, I am looking to see a demonstration of cohesion within the group, compassion for others, spiritual fortitude, and tales of intuitive adventures with their Higher Power.  And somebody please tell me what that fourth dimension is supposed to be!

For me, I have not experienced this level of empowerment. But I have gained the freedom of a spiritual seeker, and I jealously guard against secret religious agendas or attempts at behavioral control.  I am tired and must go to bed.  Debate club closed for the evening.

Acceptance is the answer, or so they say. It really seemed to help today. I asked my Higher Power for some sort of emotional triage this morning. I was hostile to the whole idea of going into work today. Full of piss and vinegar, I sent out a silent scream for help.

Then something happened. The spiritual medic dug around in my gut, and found the following – I have not heard anything from the congressional I submitted, I have heard nothing from the employment availability for the state job, my competitive spirit mixed with a desire for post-divorce vindication caused me to get overly frustrated by my son’s miss on the driving test, the apparent struggles that continue to plague my sponsees, again challenging the universal web’s vindication of this new life. But the strangest piece of shrapnel lodged within was the fear that the web was going to continue a weird duplication, a repugnant destiny that parallels my life and the life of my primary slave’s father. He also is named Rick, and shares the same birthday with me. He was in the military, got out and went to work for Walmart. This is currently my fate. It is like the time when Luke Skywalker discovered Darth Vador to be his father. It feels like a cruelty the universe is playing out in my life. I have tried to say that I am a rewrite in the history of my slave’s life, from abusive father to loving Master. But I felt the sting of cruelties such as these before.

The Medic gave me a dose of serenity-producing acceptance that would allow me to wait on the timing of my Higher Power in reference to the job and the congressional.

He then turned to my issues with my son’s driving test and my sponsees’ struggles and gave me the ability to relax and recognize that which has been accomplished. My son has applied for jobs in two places, has gotten notification for interview, and has had his cherry busted on the road test. I have no doubt that he is ready to pass it. And the universe may yet honor me with the privilege of being the catalyst for that victory. I have planted seeds in the life of both of my sponsees that can be used by their Higher Power, if they allow it. Nothing more than that can be expected.

Finally, acceptance with a redirection of my competitive spirit is given as the way to approach this Vador phenomenon. Compete against myself, not my former wife. Improve and advance wherever I end up in the universe. Do not cringe in fear at some imagined fate. Display courage even in the face of what appears to be divine criticism.

I am stumbling around looking for some safe place, some anodyne location in my brain.  Missed meetings again.  Trepidation about an amends I need to make.  The congressional looming in the shadows of my daily activity.  My time has been held hostage by school or work most of my life.  I come to life only during off times and transitional Sabbaths of social exclusion.  How can I practice an “honest” program when so much of my life is what others need it to be?  Who the hell am I?  Do I take the blue pill or the red one?  I laid down for a nap, and had some nightmares of going to a hospital and being admitted, seeing the dead ones, and children afraid as a parade of spectres ran over their huddled bodies and into some portal of oblivion.  Another chaos storm passing through.  I guess I should go attempt getting some more sleep.

Must double dip, even though I should probably just keep my mouth shut.  I am so impatient with life, I am furious.  I am livid.  Aaah!  I don’t have anything uplifting or pithy to say.  I feel phony.  My words are so mephitic.  yuk.  Anoint me in the energy of thanatos.  Save me from this pink skirt life seems determined to bury me in.  Aaah!

Aaaaahhh!  I wish I had made a meeting tonight.  Unable to accomplish things.  Up too late.  Blah.

What does courage look like?  I have seen fear in my life.  It paralyzes me.  All decision-making becomes unbearable.  I find the need to calculate the exact nature of my Higher Power.  Sleep that brings an end to the day becomes dreaded executioner of my hopes and dreams.  I cling to the day in some fruitless attempt to overpower the limits of time. 

So I invert the colors of fear and see myself moving decisively, and effectively.  I am presented with a choice, and easily chose.  I know what my day is about.  I am comfortable with my Higher Power, with whatever intuitive inspiration comes my way.  I do not fret at the passing of time, for I have been exactly where I am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to do. 

Courage takes serenity as his own prize, bound and gagged and ready to render pleasure to the Master.  Ooops.  Mind traveling in another direction.  A little Me time needed.

The twelfth step says:

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.

I have heard it asked in meetings, what principles exactly are we supposed to be practicing?  I just finished updating the prayers and promises page, and I think the principles are encapsulated in them.  I want to give credit to the following website for helping make this list of prayers more exhaustive.

[http://fellowship12.com/]

I will link them into this site as well.  See Fellowship 12.

Should I add Excellence as a value to possess?  I have been afraid that it would by like flames to the nitro-glycerin of the all or nothing thinking prevalent with the broken mind of an addict / alcoholic.  But my slave wears this value so well, it is truly seductive. 

And now that I think of it, shouldn’t sobriety be some sort of value, at the very top of my list?  Maybe predictability and punctuality would be some good sub-values.  When I was in the Army, there was an acronym – LDRSHIP – that identified army values.  Maybe another source of consideration.  I am listening to an audio course on planning.  Maybe planning should also be a value.

Yesterday, I picked up a new sponsee.  In My own meditations, I asked My Higher Power about another one, and the thought came to me that I needed to begin praying for his welfare prior to actually having contact with him.  And then within a few days, here he is.  It really works out good, since my first sponsee and I were doing a restart on the steps.  Now we are all pretty much in the same arena.