Daily Reprieve

I have just had one of the most fantastic Halloween’s of my adult life!  The spiritual path this program has opened for me has allowed me to be with my slave and enjoy life.  I would have been afraid of personal insincerity for using the word, “happy” when talking about my life last year.  But there truly is no other way to describe our time together during this special day.  My gratitude for this program is beyond words.  And living this life in the divine We is important to my daily life.  That means that it is relevant to my walking reality.  The Higher Power does not try to beat me down into a state of submission.  This Entity becomes what I need it to be at the time, which includes providing leadership.  But it never rules without consent.  I believe our concept of a divine monarch is a limited and corrupted view of the central intelligence, the spider of the universal web.  Anyway, my personal mythology is unimportant.  I just wanted anyone who may be getting started in recovery, wondering if life gets better to know that from my viewpoint, from where I stand, it gets better then any of my days drunk, and a lot better than any of my days under religious appeasement.  I am telling the truth.

Sponsee and I went to Starbuck’s and had an informal Big Book study, continuing to work our way through Bill’s Story.  We are finally making progress.  Why didn’t I do this sooner? 

I haven’t heard anything from the military.  It really seemed like doors were opening.  But there is nothing I can do.  I have done my part.  I must wait.

I am going to apply to work at a local treatment facility.  Probably won’t work, since I have only a year sober and no appropriate educational degrees.  I hate looking for employment.  Who doesn’t? 

My slave was happy tonight.  Dad and I had a good meal at Cracklin Barrel.  Sponsor left a message that he was thinking about me.  My daughter called attempting to work out her plans for Halloween.  I have much to be thankful for.  I have people.  And they have me.  I am connected.

I began to think back on spiritual ecstasies that occurred for me, and the prolonged effect they had on my life. I think it can be dangerous for someone with an addictive tendency to have such an experience, because it is like a high. And life becomes unmanageable when day to day living is obscured by a desperate frustration to relive that high over and over again. I think this is what enslaved me to central religion as a young adult. I kept looking for another hit of god-crack.

I experienced a spiritual ecstasy when I first read the scriptures from cover to cover, and believed I had gained insight into the Revelation of John. I believed I experienced another such ecstasy when I saw the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark” on the big screen, with a friend I was reaching out to, attempting to proselytize him to the Christian faith. I believe I had a anti-spiritual ecstasy when I discovered the power of this disease to overrule My mind. And recently, I had one more at Oak Mountain when I was on one of my raven walks to Musepoint (see Endigar001). The sound of the water seemed to have a supernatural loudness to it, and I could feel…power. I was enraptured.

But I know to release it and accept that it is the little efforts to build faith that are the kindling for such experiences. There must be a steady discipline to create the opportunity for magic.

The reality of the Experience came for me when I quit arguing with the Higher Power. I knew that this power was not trying to manipulate me into recovery. It was not a mafia boss, a Godfather, making an offer I couldn’t refuse. It was an invisible rescue worker getting out on the ledge with me trying to convince me to come in. I kept jumping to feel the exhilaration of falling only to get beaten up by gravity. Then I would turn around and limp back into the building to step out on the ledge from one more level up. This Higher Power wanted me to live, and told me there was another way to experience flight. But I needed to learn to respect the gravity first.

Ok, I guess I have exhausted that metaphor. But I did have to change my perspective on what the Higher Power was trying to do in my life, and that came when I realized I was supernaturally powerless over this disease. I would violate all the laws of nature that drive me to preserve my life in order to experience the thrill, the rush, the freedom, no matter how temporary. No matter the consequences. No matter how many people got hurt trying to catch me as I came crashing down on them.

I came home after that second treatment, after that desperate prayer of surrender, when I knew I wanted to live, and I could tell something had changed. I stood back and watched myself, still skeptical. But when I made it past the 90 day relapse wall, and was still enjoying my new life of sobriety, I began to suspect a psychic change had occurred.  I am growing to trust the quiet satisfaction with life over the quest for a burning bush. 

I know it may sound crazy, but this visualisation seems to work.  The funk is broken again.  I want to be real, but I am afraid that if I continue to talk about it, someone out there is going to call for the men in white coats to take me away.  I want to keep the focus on the solution to alcohol and addiction, but this is apart of the solution for me.  The spiritual freedom of the program has opened and encouraged experimentation. 

On another front, I have completed the military physical and am awaiting the results.  The job disruption is a major stress.  My resources have been exhausted in the wait and may have to go get a part time job to supplement this waiting period.

We had my daughter’s birthday party here at my place yesterday and it was really fun.  We went out to see Tropical Thunder at the dollar theatre.  What a hilarious movie!  To see her secure in my home, enjoying her friends, and my former wife there with my sponsee and my son and my father all contributing to the celebration is a wonderful experience. 

Today I am having to ride out a emotional crash.  I have tried to take it easy, and just accept the fact that I seem to do this after every success in my life.  Might be the reason I tend to be an under achiever. 

I am alone right now.  I wonder if that demon eating concept would work now?

Last night the obsession to drink returned, and powerfully so.  Why?  That, of course, is not the question you ask when under assault.  Time was quickly slipping away, and I know better than to sit around and philosophize.  I prayed to my Higher Power.  The intuition was simple.  Take action.  I began picking up the phone and calling others in my network.  I called until I actually got someone.  We talked about the reality that additional stressors can set it off.  He said that he has heard of those with 2 and 4 years sobriety suffering from it.  The move back with the military might be creating this stress.  He suggested a fear inventory, after making a meeting as soon as possible.  I went to the meeting downtown.  It was on steps 6 and 7 that have to do with dealing with my shortcomings, character flaws, and such.  Did not feel much relief.  Had planned to eat with my slave, but didn’t want her to see me like this.  I took refuge in the blessed Barnes & Noble.  I thought I might be able to work the spiral fear inventory there.  But the internal pressure and the accelerated restlessness was absolutely unbearable.  I decided that I was just going to go home and try to hide.  Weak strategy.

I went out to the truck and sat.  I recently developed a concept called eating demon flesh. 

The imagery goes something like this:  We are born and a hole appears in the universal web that matches our greatest potential.  We live out our lives within this cocoon.  There are parasitic entities that roam the universe, and attempt entry into that protected environment.  Once they get in, they feed off of the energy that is meant to help us grow.  Thus, we are suppressed and starved as they grow stronger.  Without connective energy, we don’t make it.  And they move on, empowered, to the next host.

But if you recognize the presence of your own personal demon, you can use a shamanistic type of imagery to eat at his flesh and reclaim your energy.  He cannot depart until he has successfully killed you.  He can check in, but he cannot leave until the structure collapses.  He is at your mercy.  If he attacks directly, you are able to absorb your energy out of him. 

As I sat in the truck, I thought that maybe I should return to this imagery, maybe I was actually being resisted by this entity.  I could feel its presence so very near to me, as though it was right on me.  I began to hold it, to bite into its flesh, tear its muscle, and taste that yummy demon flesh, feel its blood splatter my face and hear it screech as it scrambled to escape. 

The obsession immediately left, and I was greatly empowered.  I was more confident and happier than I had been in days.  I raced of to eat with my slave and share the good news.  I went to the Hut for another meeting and could still feel the strength racing through me.  Others were attracted to me, and recovery coursed through my veins.

The guy I had talked to earlier on the phone asked me what I had done.  I told him that I might sound crazy, but he said that was an already established fact.  I told him of all that I had done, including eating demon flesh.  He interpreted that to mean that I had changed my perspective.  OK.

Then my sponsor called me back when I returned home and we talked about it.  He said that now that I have some breathing space, do some soul searching to see what I did and didn’t do that interfered with my Higher Power connection. 

The only thing that has come to mind so far is a recurring desire to torture a predator of a young girl that I am aware of.  I revel in the thought of causing this maggot of the human species great pain and suffering.  But there is something that restrains me.  And yesterday there was the possibility that he might be slipping out of sight.  The military felt like something that was in the way of getting at this creature.  Maybe my own personal demon was using this as a possibility to weaken me spiritually.  To blind me to the extended reality of our universe. 

I remember fantasizing about his torture, needing to follow through on it, when someone sent a text saying that he is disappearing. 

I wonder if I can eat his demon’s flesh?  Or whether the young girl can?  What if the real predator is this demon he surrendered to.  What if I am restrained, because this powerful demon of his own would be released to hunt a new host if I helped it to destroy his current one.  What if the young girl has claim on his demon because of what she suffered at his hands. 

What if I could act as a spiritual conduit for this young girl in a ritual?  This seems correct.

Well, I must get ready for the second part of my military physical.  I am leaving today and will return sometime tomorrow.

I worked on scheduling my time.  I tried to keep it simple.  It is not overly inspiring.  But that could just be where I am at emotionally.  I am tired of it.  I will keep pushing.  I am tired.

Good Night.

Have you discovered you are a child when you need to be an adult, and that you are old and cynical when you need to be a happy little child?  There are things that I should have learned long ago.  And there are things that I never should have forgotten.  Life feels like a well crafted and cruel trick at times.  I will change, because it is necessary for survival.  I will do it in spite of the lack of inspiration, and thus, relevance to the dreams that scream they are real, but vanish in the practice of daily living.

This program, this life, often seems to be about surviving which requires the redefining of magic in discrete, but manageable portions.  I have seen too many movies, embraced too many comic book icons.  Life is either boring or tragic.  You can’t bow to satan and wake up the next morning shooting lightning from your fingertips, nor can you bow to christ and walk on water.  The real magic appears when someone reaches out and gives a damn about somebody else.  I guess.

I’ve noticed many people seem to develop a survival mantra.  My Mother used to say that she would tell herself, “If this doesn’t work, I can always kill myself tomorrow.”  This apparently gave her the courage to try one more time.  My slave said that she picked up this one from her workplace, “Put on your big girl panties and get to work.”  The Army passed these jewels on to me, “Suck it and drive on,” “Adapt and overcome,” “if it ain’t raining, we ain’t training,” “The hard right over the easy wrong,” “One shot, one kill,” “no guts, no glory – no brain, no battle” “There is a fine line between hard and retard.”

There was one that I picked up from Brian Tracy in his self-improvement series, Master Strategies (I had to get it, it had the word Master in it):  “Anything worth doing is worth doing wrong in the beginning.”  He encourages you to push past the pain of learning new things, a pain caused by entering the arena as a child, ignorant but determined. 

There is a story in the Old Testament scripture I really enjoy.  It is the story of Joshua and Caleb.  After 40 years of marching slaves around in the wilderness, waiting for the last of these professional victims to die off, they finally get to go in and carve out some turf.  Caleb went after the Giants in the mountains, so he and his sons would always be known as giant killers.  After all the blood shed that comes with announcing you are ready to build a society, Caleb dies.  And I remember one phrase about him that resonated with me when I read it.  “He lived until he died.”

I want that to be true about me.  But many of those stories are ancient comic book icons.  The god of the old testament and his followers would be held for crimes against humanity in today’s paradigm.   Its a stretch to make them relevant.

When I picked up my one year chip, many told me that the second year of sobriety is harder than the first.  Maybe that is because there is no longer the death dance with the obsession to drink or use.  There is only the silent reality of “living life on life’s terms.” 

I had an assignment back in 2006 to elaborate on what it meant to me to live life on life’s terms.  I have added that to “I’m Rick, and I am an alcoholic” page.  The reality expressed in that writing assignment was hard won.  It seems helpful to consider now.  Hopefully.  I really need to pull myself out of this funk.

I had a very unusual night with my slave.  For the past few days, I have felt like I have been losing time, or rather like I am lost.  Why did I do this?  Why didn’t I do that?  I carried this general sense of frustrated confusion into my time with her.  I felt as if I were facing a parade of my character flaws.  Truth was demanding a sit down session with me, and decided to inhabit the body of my slave.  her name is tarasha and she said, “Truth is like that friend you cannot stand but cannot live without.” 

Truth was pointing out my negligence to plan.  This is an important part of meeting with my Higher Power and starting out the day.  She quoted the saying I have heard many times; Fail to plan, plan to fail. 

Planning is a prerequisite to consistant action.  And it appears that action is the primary antidote for fear.  I hope the next time I am feeling fear, I take a good look at my planning and review time.  And I have got to keep it simple.  Simplicity is the traction needed to get and keep a grip on life.

What a difference a meeting can make.  I am much better.  I think I am really an alcoholic.  Thanks to this program I can see the precursor of the actual addictive obsession in the form of previously identified short-comings.  And thanks to the Higher Power for providing a solution once I recognize those warning flags.  Now, if I can just persuade myself to go to bed.