Daily Reprieve

I thought I had discovered another unuseful idea associated with so much resentment against myself.  “I will make stupid mistakes, use poor judgement, and as a result, I will hurt others.”  It has been haunting me for the past two weeks.  Well, it has probably haunted me all my life, but the past few weeks I was able to speak it out and identify what it was saying to me.

Yesterday was full of little hecklers reminding me of my inadequacies.  I got nowhere near being the “amazing” individual I want to be.  I was crumbling inside, and having great difficulty sleeping.  I had made myself responsible for someone’s happiness and felt that I had failed.

I awoke with a profound sense of futility, which is what I tend to use as a serenity substitute.  I am nothing.  So much is lost.  Lonely and frustrated.  Tired.  Depressed again.  I felt the impending doom of yet another judgment day.

I went to an AlAnon meeting and heard my thoughts expressed in the collective.  The profound fear of inadequacy, the sense of futility, the focus on situations and …I belong here, probably more than I do in AA.  This is where I need to find my next sponsor.  I have to make it to that Tuesday men’s group.  This may be why my 12 step progress has been limited.  Most of my resentments and damning experiences have little to do with my actual alcoholism.  It is likely more intimately intwined with my need to fix everything and everyone.

If the obsession of every abnormal drinker (alcoholic) is the idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his liquor drinking, and the persistence of this illusion has led many into the gates of insanity or tragic death, then maybe there is a parallel obsession that I have been talking about here.  It is the persistent illusion that I can control and enjoy those in my intimate sphere and through this process find fulfillment.  I tend to pursue this illusion with suicidal tenacity as well.

I am a double-winner.  I am an alcoholic and an alanonic.

The words in the AlAnon meeting were so very resonant to me, and as a result, my raw emotion resurfaced.  Embarrassing.  I hate crying.  But I went out, got control, and returned to the group.  Because I know that I need to connect.  And I will.

I did a 10th step inventory with the guidance of a friend.  She wrote down an unuseful idea that seemed to come out last night;

I will never be understood and if I try I will be deeply wounded.

I think I have something like that recorded already.  So, maybe that idea is the one I should work on with the moon guide.  Ah, here it is

From Endigar 282 & 277;

~ The concepts and thoughts that I value will be overshadowed by a stronger presence. The products of my mind and heart will be dismissed as insignificant in a crowd, and assaulted in the presence of a strong presentation. This idea moves me into withdrawal seasoned with a continuous, simmering, judgment or open and probably unwarranted aggression. People are usually surprised by the latter. Another idea that came out that seems related is that I would become nobody if not cloaked in some special ability.

~ Uncontrolled and spiritually undeveloped people will attack or hurt me. This leads me to create protective alliances by pretending weakness, vulnerability, or hurt. I call this the belly up manipulation. It is such an ingrained practice that I don’t realize when I am doing it.

Is this a root idea, or is it a resulting fear of something else? Is it related to the discussion of masculinity in Endigar 307? A couple of other ideas that seem to be close relatives to these are:

~ Personal assertions that are not wrapped in a mantle of pain, depression, and anguish will not be taken seriously. Assertions expressed with happiness will be seen as frivolous and thus, discarded. I realized I felt this at a Hoot Owl meeting this weekend when the topic was on laughter and not being a glum lot. It appears that this might create the deliberate manufacture of misery, a habit of morbid self-reflection, and the need to condemn simplicity.

~ Honesty is a social control mechanism and has very little to do with the discovery of truth. When I hear someone say, “I just want you to be honest with me,” I translate that to mean, “I just want you to give me enough personal information to ensnare you.” When I got my first Big Book, I attempted to go through and mark out and replace every mention of the word HONESTY with the word TRUTH. I gave up, because it was all over the place in my book.

The true powerlessness here belongs to the actual root idea, and I am just not sure what that is. I need to get with my guide and talk some more on this.

Just started reading “How Al-Anon Works.”

For those of us who never even knew the drinker, recognizing the true nature of the problem can be even more difficult.  We may have been affected by the alcoholism of a grandparent or distant relative whom we barely knew, or by relatives or friends who have been sober as long as we’ve known them.  Yet the effects of this disease are no less profound and far-reaching.  Often, our relatives never recognized the effects of alcoholism and inadvertently passed on those effects to us.  We may, for instance, have picked up the struggle in the form of daily bouts with anxiety, or we may have difficulty trusting anyone or anything, always waiting for chaos or disaster to strike, even when all seems well.

This resonates for me.

Even if we have no idea whether or not anyone around us has had a drinking problem, we can see the effects of alcoholism in our own lives if we know what to look for.  We who have been affected by someone else’s drinking find ourselves inexplicably haunted by insecurity, fear, guilt, obsession with others, or an overwhelming need to control every person and situation we encounter.  And although our loved ones appear to be the ones with the problems, we secretly blame ourselves, feeling that somehow we are the cause of the trouble, or that we should have been able to overcome it with love, prayer, hard work, intelligence, or perseverance.

Yes, I have felt this.  Hurt and worried.  Frustrated.  Resentful.

We urge you to try our program.  It has helped many of us find solutions that lead to serenity.  So much depends on our own attitudes, and as we learn to place our problem in its true perspective, we find it loses its power to dominate our thoughts and lives.

Maybe.

Page 28, the 12 & 12;

Sometimes A.A. comes harder to those who have lost or rejected faith than to those who never had any faith at all, for they think they have tried faith and found it wanting.  They have tried the way of faith and the way of no faith.  Since both ways have proved bitterly disappointing, they have concluded there is no place whatever for them to go.  The roadblocks of indifference, fancied self-sufficiency, prejudice, and defiance often prove more solid and formidable for these people than any erected by the unconvinced agnostic or even the militant atheist.  Religion says the existence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can’t be proved; and the atheist claims proof of the nonexistence of God.  Obviously, the dilemma of the wanderer from faith is that of profound confusion.  He thinks himself lost to the comfort of any conviction at all.  He cannot attain in even a small degree the assurance of the believer, the agnostic, or the atheist.  He is the bewildered one.

Page 29;

Finally , when all our score cards read ‘zero,’ and we saw that one more strike would put us out of the game forever, we had to look for our lost faith.  It was in A.A. that we rediscovered it.  And so can you.

LOTR Quote;

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

God grant me the Serenity to flow like water

The Courage to stand like stone

And the Wisdom to know balance

I met with the Moon Guide yesterday evening.  We talked again of masculine and feminine energy, and in particular, my problems with their interaction within me.  Our conversation traveled to the Tao, with its metaphor of stone and water.  We considered the assertion that all gender does not limit the use of energy from either source.  And we established that I use the feminine energy when I operate in empathy and sensitivity with others.  I have regarded my empathy as weakness, when in fact it can be a great and needed gift.  I use masculine energy as well, but seem to get frustrated with the way in which I use it.  What I appreciate about masculinity is its ability to cut through obstacles of confusion and provide direct guidance.

As we talked, I began to see that it is the development of manipulation as a method to assert these two energies.  It appears most common in the use of the feminine energy and it appears to me that it breeds delusion.  And it is most repulsive to me when masculine energy is expressed in this way, becoming an annoying  passive aggressive intrusion to true confident strength.

I love the unrepentant expression of masculine and feminine energy.  It is this manipulation that I cannot stand, and that I seem to fall prey to myself.  And then I become the target of my own disgust.

I have recently experienced being forthright and truthful, and that seems to secure sanity.

The Moon Guide mentioned ground-hog day, that there is plenty of empirical evidence throughout human history that we relive some situations over and over until we get it right.  I am not sure that I have ever seen that movie, but know the premise of it.  He said this to counter my tendency to yawn at life and believe that it might be better to go ahead and close this iteration because I have experienced all the primary joys of life.

The Moon Guide discussed the failings of human will, and that what recovery and other spiritual pursuits seem to point to is the power of perception.  A change in perception can gain access to motivation.  For human beings, motivation equals power.  I have heard him say that he does not believe in lazy people, only unmotivated ones.

The Moon Guide mentioned, and this was brought up by my slave, that they believe I might have Asperger’s Syndrome.  But he said that if I do, that it is to a low degree.  He said that the systems I have developed would make some good fictional writing.

And as far as the steps go, I need to get an active sponsor and finish step nine.  He said he doesn’t believe that I need to start over.  All and all, I think it was a rather fruitful conversation.

This is my paraphrase of several excerpts taken from the Big Book:

The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on isolating self-protection and enthronement can hardly be a success.  Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this kind of selfishness.  We must, or it kills us!  The concept of the God of my understanding makes that possible.  We had to quit playing God.  It didn’t work.

Next we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, GOMU was going to be our Director.  She-He-It is the Principal; we are the agents.  She-He-It is the Parent, and we are the children ready to be reparented beyond the limits of our earthly ones.  Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom.

Once this has been digested into our lives, all sorts of remarkable things followed.  We had a new all-powerful Employer, that provided what we needed, if we kept close to She-He-It and performed our assigned work well.

As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of Her-His-Its presence, we began to lose our fear.  We were reborn.

I have been suffering from chronic fatigue this weekend.  And what I wanted to write, has left me.  I wanted to talk about the unuseful ideas, and about where I am going with my program.  But I must turn my attention toward school.  I seem to have lost the creative energy that I had earlier today.  I don’t know why.  I am greatful to have made it to the 90 day mark again.  I am feeling disoriented.  I must rest.  I will be back later.

Unuseful Idea:  Failure is inevitable, and if that failure is proven, revealed, discovered…I must die.

No wonder I hate taking any test I don’t have a pretty good feel about.  And I do not feel good about this Java midterm.  I had all day yesterday to read and I just could not get out of my head.  And it was probably due to the influence of this old idea construct.  I truly do wish these ideas could be super novas…a release of all that bottled up potential life.  Bottled up life…ha.

I feel a lot of fear before this test…it is paralyzing.

I wrote all that this morning (Endigar 302)?  I feel much better now.  Got out and made my first class.  Maybe it is the sleep deprivation.  I did make a meeting yesterday and called my sponsor, who is fresh out of the hospital.  Had to leave him a message.  Well, I guess it is time for me to shut up for a bit, and see what I can accomplish.