Daily Reprieve

This was the most nothing day I have had in a while.  I guess I should be thankful that it didn’t include a tankard of ale.  Or a bottle of vodka.   Or any other mind altering substance I could get my hands on.  And I am. 

I relented to my desire to pull away from everyone today.  I made no connections at all, except what was absolutely necessary.  That is probably not a wise move.  But I am tired of it.  I need some time to be a slug.  I need time to oversleep and masturbate to naughty thoughts and waste my life playing computer games.  I have been so nice to so many people that I am simply drained. 

So what now.  Do I attempt to do something productive in the dark of the night?  I am going to see if I can get the right of passage for my son written up.  I think it is about time for me to close this circle for both of our sakes.  I will try to come back here later on.  Maybe I will have it finished by then.

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Insuring immunity…intense work with other alcoholics.  I began to sink again, mood dropping.  In keeping with the surrender to the Higher Power, or the life swap, I sought intuitive guidance.  I was not really enthusiastic about the directive that popped into my head.  Pick up my sponsee and spend time working with him in a continuation of our Big Book study.  What I wanted to do was pull away, hide away.  My children are here with me.  There is something that changes within me when they are present.  I expect so much more from myself.  And yet I feel lost.  Issues for me to work on.  And issues for my disease to work on.  I followed the guidance.  I am out of the nose dive.  We worked on the second step while reading through chapter four, We Agnostics.  It turned out well.  We made progress.  We laughed,  relaxed,  experienced some sanity.  Gained another day. 

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There are so many things I am interested in.  It is real easy to get distracted from recovery, particularly when the obsession is no longer nipping at my heels.  But my picture of what sobriety looks like has got to be updated, become richer and more inclusive.  When I first come in, it is abstinance and a breath of sanity.  But that view will not sustain me.  It then becomes a surrender to a spiritual way of life.  It must manifest in service work and greater connections.  Then I must find others to help.  What is required for recovery grows, and the territory of my sobriety must expand.  There are no boundaries to maintain here.  Once I relax and say that I have arrived, I begin working the steps of this program backwards and unknowingly unravel my sobriety.  For others, the holidays is an excuse to find a place of respite.  For me, it is a time of increased vigilance and involvement. 

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The act of surrendering completely to the Higher Power is a little  surreal for me.  But it has been beneficial.  It releases me to respond to intuitive thought more freely.  Shortcomings are more quickly addressed, such as getting into on-line “discussions” and not being able to let go.  I can feel the tug that interrupts my obsessive thinking long enough to say “he gives blessings to his beloved in sleep.  Let it go.” 

I did well with push ups and sit ups on the Army Reserve PT test.  The run sucked.  But it was a run, I was trying.  I will continue to seek improvement, but if the Higher Power does not want this, it will not happen.  I am OK with that now.

A strong creative urge has come to life.  It has mostly been spent on one of my other web-logs.

I will go to another CA group that needs help and support, in an hour or so.  Time to get out there again.

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Tomorrow will be about 29 degrees at 6am, and feel like 26.  I will be standing with many other soldiers to demonstrate my physical fitness.  I have been here before.  But never with the baggage I carry now.  I remember a scene in the first Rocky movie that kinda captures the way I am feeling:

Rocky: I can’t do it.
Adrian: What?
Rocky: I can’t beat him.
Adrian: Apollo?
Rocky: Yeah. I been out there walkin’ around, thinkin’. I mean, who am I kiddin’? I ain’t even in the guy’s league.
Adrian: What are we gonna do?
Rocky: I don’t know.
Adrian: You worked so hard.
Rocky: Yeah, that don’t matter. ‘Cause I was nobody before.
Adrian: Don’t say that.
Rocky: Ah come on, Adrian, it’s true. I was nobody. But that don’t matter either, you know? ‘Cause I was thinkin’, it really don’t matter if I lose this fight. It really don’t matter if this guy opens my head, either. ‘Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.

I just want to be able to go the distance.  I know I’m being a little melodramatic.  But that is the way I am.  It is the way I feel.  The catholic church down the street is celebrating “Our Lady of Guadalupe,”  maybe I will follow Rocky’s example and see if I can get some sort of blessing.

Can this God of my sobriety be the God of my life?  Can the usefulness I find in sponsorship and service translate into a fulfilled purpose in life?  I feel like a little child who has pushed the doors open on the temple of my personal mythology.  I am excited, and unsure.  I step carefully inside, periodically looking back to see if the doors are going to trap me.  But so what!  This is my temple, for the God of my understanding!  There are treasures in here, I am sure of it.  I am surrounded by eight mirrors.  The images are different perspectives of me.  Once I stand in the center and each mirror holds a reflection, an energy fills the room.  It touches each of them and the two dimensional echos of my life become three dimensional images of interactive power.  In the union between myself and this Higher Power, they gain life.  Can this magic move beyond the mirrors?  I think it may be possible.

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I took a big risk last night.  I talked with my Higher Power about total surrender.  I guess a better term for me would be the idea of a spiritual swap.  I saw how well it has worked for my return to the military, and I became jealous of myself.  By that I mean that I really wanted to see that kind of serenity and strength in all areas of my life. 

I took all of my goals and aspirations that I have been struggling to bring to life and sealed them in a storage facility on the other side of life, the one we know so little of, but that I have been given the gift of faith to believe actually exists.  In return, the Higher Power will occupy the various expressions of me, here and now.  I practice doing everything with this realization, following intuitive guidance.

I really have nothing to lose.  If the Higher Power does reach out through me, and I experience the connectedness with It and my fellows, and a release from fear, my life will be greatly enhanced.  If nothing results from doing this, I will be left with the same frustrations I had before.  Self-enthronement was not working for me, but it is always an option. 

The risk is that I will yank back control based on some level of disappointment, and judge the Higher Power to be inadequate.  High expectations can lead to great discouragements.  So I must have a commitment to this course of action that goes beyond emotional highs and lows.  And the only way that is possible for me, is if the Higher Power truly takes me up on this offer to swap lives.  I believe It will and has done that.  I feel an excitement at the prospect.  

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I want to try something different.   That part of my life that is lodged in my heart, unable to achieve expression because of various ingrained fears, I am going to offer it to the HP to see if It can bring a level of life to it I have been unable to.  My premise is that if this Entity is creator, then there are certain things created in my being that It desires to see unfold, to live.  It would give me a hunger to fulfill it.  What if a “trick” to this life is swapping my place here for a more permanent and powerful place there, wherever that is.  The price tag is taking bits and pieces of my present existence and surrendering them to the will and care of the HP, as spoken of in the 3rd step.  I create the place holder within me by knowing myself.  Then I surrender this place to the HP.  The HP does with it whatever It wills.  “Not my will, but yours.”  In another dimension, my new existence awakens a little.  The more I am able to surrender here, the more powerful I become there. 

My slave sent me a text the other night, when she was overwhelmed and taxed at her job.  It said something along the lines; I have to get me into a real job or quit sending the real me to that job.  A seed planted and began to unfold as I studied the problem of fear and doubt in my own life.

I am continually drawn to serve our country in the military.  Yet I am getting older and the prospect of performing and failing creates excessive stomach acid.  The prospect of succeeding and being buried in overwhelming responsibilities that isolate me from others depresses me.  I am powerless over my offered service to this country and as a result my entire life has become unmanageable.  This surrender is a desperate act.  I need help living.

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Sorry about the verbal vomit from the last post.  Self-pity, resentment, anger, and ….FEAR.  The Higher Power turns around and simply says, “Come with Me, if you want to live.”

I do.  I will.  Today.

I stayed up all night, doing recovery homework, searching for the source of this current obsession.  Where did I pick this monster up again?  Sifting through old paperwork, looking at my old fear inventory, I found a self appraisal that might indicate that I am maniac – depressive.  I seem to bounce between spiritual ecstasy and carnal despair.  My girlfriend has mentioned this possibility.  So many memories dredged up.  So many nightmares that came true.  She was there in hell, waiting for me to appear. 

Will the Higher Power show up, empower me, because I am doing the best I know how?  My experience says that it is not likely.  My experience tells me that this Higher Power will remain irrelevant, sneak around, and lure me into harms way and watch my humiliation unfold.  The female aspect of god will mother and shower me with the ultimate cruelty, love filtered through pity.  Is the Higher Power afraid that I will attempt to build my own Tower of Babel?  The phallic self-expression must be assaulted with confusion and internal strife. 

As long as I lived a life of low expectations and focused only on recovery, the Higher Power seemed to encourage me.  But when I attempted to close the circle of my military service, this same Entity seemed to develop a cruel disdain.  I am ravaged by my own fears.  The recovery group is keeping me alive.  My slave is keeping my masculinity alive.   My children are keeping my hope alive.  I hate living on life support.  I have got to find my path regardless of god or love. 

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