Daily Reprieve

I am saying all the right words because, I know all the right words to say.  I am going to perform an autopsy on my thoughts, looking for the cause of death.  Why do I feel dead today?

What if I am a fake me…a phony Rick?  What if the evaluation was true, even if it was not accurate? 

I ate breakfast with my slave yesterday, then ate secondansies with my Father.  I wrote Endigar 105, and became dizzy.  My ears began to ring as if sirens where going off.  I began to suffer from vertigo, so that I found it difficult to walk.  I retreated to my room to lie down.  The bed was spinning.  Cold sweat.  I slept some, but awoke in no better of a condition.  I vomited several times.  And then it began to clear up.  I was ok. 

I couldn’t sleep.  I slept for a couple of hours.  Played Dungeon Siege II throughout the night.  I wrote a thank-you letter to the Senator.  I talked to my recruiter and he let me know that the second part of my physical had been put off until the 22nd. 

I talked to my sponsee, hoping that listening to his problems would get me “out of my head.”  Not working.  I will go to a meeting. 

But right now, I am not very happy.  I am quietly angry, with me.  And I still feel slightly sick.  When I try to lie down, my neck hurts.  I cannot seem to relax. 

I wear myself out.  My sponsor would probably want me to trace back to something I did that robbed my serenity.  Or didn’t do.  I hate living that way.  That is all I did under the stewardship of religion – second guess myself.

This is a quote from the Big Book, page 103:

Some day we hope that Alcoholics Anonymous will help the public to a better realization of the gravity of the alcohol problem, but we shall be of little use if our attitude is one of bitterness or hostility.  Drinkers will not stand for it.

After all, our problems were of our own making.  Bottles were only a symbol.  Besides, we have stopped fighting anybody or anything.  We have to!

I have struggled with the correct response to this congressional.  In reality, it is miraculous that I did not take a harder hit from my misdeeds.  It was a disease I allowed to get out of control.  Why should I expect those who know little or nothing about this disease to behave as if they do?  Did they not do me a favor in the long run by allowing me to experience significant consequences for my actions?  How much longer would I have clung to the illusion that I could turn the disease on and off to serve my purposes? 

The more I struggle with appealing the false elements of this evaluation, the more stressful and dirty I feel.  This is not good for sobriety, for my long term spiritual health.  I cannot wrap myself in a victim’s mantel.  I will not manipulate the system to agree with my self-pity.  I am responsible for my own actions.  I am not afraid to be accountable.

I am going to thank Senator Sessions for his assistance, write a letter expressing my perspective of the incident, and asked that it be included with the evaluation.  If the Army Reserve wants to take any corrective action, so be it.  But as for me, I am grateful to have another shot at living, and at serving this country I love.

 Well the congressional finally came in and the performance evaluation was ugly.  I will appeal that part of it that is false, and own up to that which is true.  I think that telling my story yesterday has helped preserve the strength of my sobriety today.

I feel that girggling anxiety.  I am trying to relax and trust that my Higher Power is going to guide me through this.  The prayer associated with fear is quite applicable here.  Help me to be what I am supposed to be, no more or less.

I told my story for the first time.  I cannot of course speak about the people in the facility due to anonymity and HIPPA, but I felt a connection.  I believe it was useful but I hear a voice within saying I could have done better.  I think I am going to lay down and rest for a while.

My amends are now at 62%.  I have been asked to speak at a treatment facility in the area.  I speaking at 10am tomorrow.  I am feeling rather sickish.  I wish it wasn’t on a Sunday morning.  I refuse to be a preacher.  I am just me.  That’s all.  I’m doing this as a sobriety vampire.  period.

I am now at 60% complete on the amends after meeting with my sponsor tonight.  And I sent him 56 emails containing posts from this website so that he can choose to be aware of the ramblings here or just hit the delete button.  But I have done my part.  Now I think I am going to go to bed.

Ok, I’m through with that.  I feel better when I am in lust than when I’m coddling romantic notions of transcendant bonds of destiny.  How can I be accountable for a life I cannot fully remember and may not even be real.  I do not need additional forces to help me second guess myself. 

I did go out and get some Neil Diamond including his newest album, Home After Dark.  There was one song on there ~ One More Bite of the Apple that really helped me.  I went to it first because of the unusual mention in my third step prayer “Thank-you for one more apple to eat a bite at a time.”

Anyway, in this life, I have not left anyone in a burning building to save myself.  So screw all that shit.  I guess I have an adverse reaction to media that is too gentle.  I have got to get some violence and darkness into me before I disintergrate.

I also have to get out of my head.  Too much mental masturbation going on.  A meeting.  Going to start calling the network.

During the course of my life, I have gone through many appeasement purges, where I have destroyed things that I loved in order to focus in on and show my devotion to God.  One such purge was the destruction of my record album collection.  I sacrificed some of the most spiritual music in my life trying to be … spiritual.  Neil Diamond opens my heart like no other musician ever has.  I think it is time I retrieve him.  I want to see what he sounds like to free ears.

What if the movie is right, and you get to chose if you come back again?  What if soul mates do chose to come back so they can rediscover each other?  Would I not chose to do it better this time?  Has the intelligent force of the web, this Higher Power, bent the universe to help me do it better this time?  I can accept endings as transitions, come out of my cave, and sacrifice for love’s sake.  I don’t have to condemn myself to a coward’s hell.  Surely, I can do it better this time.  Progress prior to perfection.

Maybe this explains why Barry Manilow’s song Mandy meant so much to me as a teen.  Why I was drawn to it, but hurt every time I heard it.  And Neil Diamond’s, “I am I said” had a simular affect.  And I was drawn to the spiritual concepts in Jonathan Livingston Seagull and listened to Neil’s soundtrack.  I read the book by Richard Bach on soul mates. 

Maybe all this set me up to develop a memory.  Leaving me skeptical still.

I don’t know whether I believe in past lives or not.  But I have a piece of a memory that is painful, but is not apart of this lifetime.  Is there a way to do a Fourth / Fifth Step on a past life? 

This is what the movie opened up for me last night.  This is the “memory.”  I am leaving a large structure, castle or mansion like.  There is fire around me and panic within.  I am in trouble for something, I don’t know what.  I feel a sickish guilt as I look to a side room and see her.  She is behind a bed, her eyes squinting in the pain of my departure.  I stop and look at those eyes.  Flames flickering the glow of hell around her.  If I don’t move, I will stay here and die.  I leave her.  I am afraid. 

When I get outside, there is snow and barren deciduous trees.  I run.  I am breathing hard.  If I can just get to the mountain in front of me, I can escape.  I remember the cold air painfully filling my lungs and my heart will not quit pounding out alarm.  I am grabbing brush to pull me upward and onward.  I can remember the black or dark robe like material I was wearing getting caught and slowing me down.  There ahead, I find the small opening of a cave.  I feel its safety, and I look back.  I hear voices, animals, maybe dogs?  I retreat into the darkness.  The memory ends.  But not the intense pain.  I hate myself for leaving her, for wanting to live.  I could not sacrifice myself for love.  And I lost her.

The main character in this movie went to hell to be with his love.  That is what I should have done.  The guilt is tremedous.  How can this not be real?  Their home in hell looks like a burned out mansion. 

When I look into my slave’s eyes, do I see her again?  When we were first together, I kept her blindfolded.  There is power in the eyes.  They say so much, no matter how submissive.  Now, I look at her and get this overwhelming desire to paint her portrait.  To capture her beauty as I see it.  Especially when I look too long into her eyes.  But I cannot paint at that skill level.  I do abstracts, surreal type work.  I see in her a beauty that transcends this lifetime, and I am almost certain that we have known each other before.  Maybe I was an artist back then.  Maybe that is why I was reborn to my artistic Mother. 

And this may be another reason why I hate goodbye.  And retreat to caves.  And fear loving again.

Was I a coward?