Daily Reprieve

Amends are now at 53% complete.  This evening’s amends with someone from the church I was apart of.  He said that I had never wronged him, that I owed him nothing.  He said that he had only been concerned.  He left the church eight months ago, and we actually had several areas that we related to one another.  He suggested I read a book written by his friend called, “Stop the church, I want to get off.” 

I finally watched the movie “What Dreams may Come.”  was a good image of the afterlife and a powerful romance.  But it has aroused my love.  Anyone I love, I feel it so much stronger tonight.  But I do not trust love to stay, so I would rather not feel this.  I hurt.  I cannot stop myself from weeping.  Why? 

I think I will go to bed before I embarrass myself once more.

If you live in the Birmingham area and need a counselor knowledgeable of addiction, I highly recommend Paul Brown.  He has an empathetic gift, and an ability to help you restate your thoughts more clearly.  That is really helpful in muddling through with a physical craving and mental obsession snapping at your heels.  His website is [www.pbrownacsw.com].  I will add it as a link to this site as well.  He helped me know that I wanted to be able to believe again, but that I just didn’t want to be deceived and robbed of valuable life investment once more.  He helped me to understand that I don’t just desire to know truth, but I desire clarity.  And he gave me the following prayer when I was struggling so with the whole Higher Power thing:

“MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.  And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.  Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Thomas Merton – Thoughts in Solitude

I have come to realize that I am socially immature in so many ways.  I am like some lumbering beast at a tea party.  I have often had problems with saying good-bye.  I used to say that it was a military superstition.  I am beginning to believe that is probably self-justification.  I am inconsiderate of others.  Why?  Maybe it is because I am so overly considerate of my own pain, that I minimize my own impact on others around me. 

I remember a time back in my childhood that might render some understanding her, some reason, other than simply being an asshole.  I learned to become invisible in my teenage years to avoid any possibility of ridicule or humiliation.  But such a strategy had a price.  People were willing to accommodate me.  I became insignificant.  And this was enhanced when it was time to sign yearbooks.  I so longed for others to write little messages about me in my book and how they would miss me.  The few times I got up the nerve to acknowledge the desire and ask someone to sign, the message they would put in it was so generic, so stilted, that it hurt more than being ignored.  It was social pity.  And others would pass their books to me, and I was terrified that they would discover that I did not know them either.  I learned to absolutely dread yearbooks. 

The reality was that I wanted to connect with others without the risk of being hurt by others.  Becoming a nobody was the best plan I could come up with.

In the process of doing my fourth and fifth step, several short-comings were identified.  When these short-comings become more and more active, my disease is gaining strength, and I have a very limited amount of time to confront the short-coming.  Or the disease will begin confronting me.  And I almost always lose when I wait for that to happen. 

The short-coming that I started off with was being judgmental, harsh to myself and others.  The Higher Power has worked with me on this.

Now, it appears that with the renewed opportunity with the military, I am dealing with another short-coming:  Inconsideration.  So the opposite characteristic that I want built into me is Consideration. 

Example – on my last day of work at Walmart, there were co-workers I had enjoyed and developed a good working relationship with.   They were unaware that it was my last day.  One of them discovered and was angry with me.  I thought she was joking.  But apparently, she was truly hurt with me.  I am not used to being significant enough to miss, at least in my own mind.  I am taking more risks in relationships and others are taking risks in being in a relationship with me.  I have to honor and respect them the way that I would want to.  It means a lot for someone to drop their guard and welcome you into their hearts, if only during duty hours.  It is still very significant.

I do not want to turn others into nobodies. 

There is woman who has allowed me to visit her world, and I have been inconsiderate to her as well.  I will guard her anonymity here on this site, but her anger with me for not telling her personally that I was leaving is very real.

I have worked on this short-coming with others in my life; My father, slave, children.  But I still have a way to go.  I just didn’t realize the profound impact I was having. 

I hope that I can make amends and build a social interaction that is enhanced with respect and consideration for others who, even for a moment, open the door of their hearts to me.

I just woke up from a dream in which I was watching myself promise to steal a restaurant from a local friendly owner and love her and make her beautiful.  Then next to my bed I had a toy confederate soldier that had the traditional uniform except it was all flashy silver and glittery.  His horse was shiny gold.  The images were disturbing.  Flashy and frivolously bold.  Then I began to think about this previous entry, and the program’s principal of anonymity.  Rather than change my previous post to appear more humble, I just decided to put some entries from the “As Bill Sees It” book to emphasize what I am talking about.  I lack a certain element of accountability on this blog, but my sponsor does not what to read it for some reason or another.  It is supposed to be a real account anyway.  I am not dressing me up to show you that “I have arrived.”  I am going to embarrass myself from time to time in an attempt to be real, honest, and hopefully, some of you can relate to me on some level.  Here are the excerpts

From the Grapevine newsletter of June, 1961, Bill Wilson:

“I see ‘humility for today’ as a safe and secure stance midway between violent emotional extremes.  It is a quiet place where I can keep enough perspective and enough balance to take my next small step up the clearly marked road that points toward eternal values.”

12 and 12, page 75

“We saw we needn’t always be bludgeoned and beaten into humility.  It could come quite as much from our voluntary reaching for it as it could from unremitting suffering”

Letter from Bill Wilson, 1966:

“We first reach for a little humility, knowing that we shall perish of alcoholism if we do not.  After a time, though we may still rebel somewhat, we commence to practice humility because this is the right thing to do.  Then comes the day when, finally freed in large degree from rebellion, we practice humility because we deeply want it as a way of life.”

Trusting my Higher Power with the financial care of my life has been a big leap for me.  A lot of magic has occurred since last I made that confession.  I served out a two week notice at my job without insuring that I have something waiting for me when the Walmart paycheck stops.  That is a violation of money morality.  Shame on me.  How irresponsible.

But I remember what it was like to cling to a job when my heart no longer supports the effort.  The money was too good.  The location perfect.  I began to chant the mantra that “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, no matter what.”  I turned to alcohol to empower me to work beyond the growing void of my heart.  It ended in pure humiliation and almost guaranteed my self-destruction. 

So, I really can’t be bothered too much by what the money morality police say.  I must be true to myself.  I was staying with a recovery job longer than I needed to.  It was time to move on.  So I made amends to myself, after I made amends to the co-workers I chewed up for being in the wrong place as my disease began manifesting through my short-comings. 

I was at peace with the decision and was encouraged because the State of Alabama had interviewed me for an IT operator’s position.

Then, I served my last day and was given an opportunity to take my daughter out with a friend and his daughter to the State Fair without paying a dime.  We were free to ride everything.  And riding the rides at amusement parks have become a metaphor for facing fears. 

I sought out my Higher Power.  I received intuitive inspiration that, since I had a new employer according to the Big Book of AA, I was to treat that as an absolute reality.  I was not unemployed, but had just walked into a full time job with the Higher Power.  I was to focus in on recovery related tasks, with around 3 hours of reading and around 6 hours of connecting.  The day was to begin with the 3rd and 7th step prayers, and seeking a 24 hour plan for the day.  It was to end with a review of the day, staying alert to where my disease might be trying to kill me.  How can I improve my life on a day to day basis? 

I drew circles with paintbrush on the computer to keep track of my activities, as if I were at a job.  I gave the completed days to my Higher Power in the process of review.  I have definitely not been perfect, but it motivates me, and activity seems to override fear.

Apart of my personal amends to the US Government, and the Military, was to offer my services once more, this time very much sober.  We are at war.  I have a lot of experience.  I have gained much as a service member.  How can I pay back the American people, and the US Government that I love so much. 

I gathered together and organized my records.  I created a portfolio of sorts, so that I could go to the recruiter and negotiate my return to service.  To say that I was nervous is an understatement.  But I entered the door and presented myself for service.

When I walked back out, my head was spinning.  It appears that I am on my way to San Antonio, Texas to go to medical training at Fort Sam Houston, maybe within a matter of weeks.  I am able to keep my rank.  The training will probably be a year or so.  I will be return to the Army Reserve so that I can re-serve.  I am getting a do over. 

My sponsor warned me that I will blow it again if I do not take proactive measures to insure I have contact with the recovery community in Texas, and find a sponsor in the home of the Alamo. 

I entered the military as an 18 year old on my first plain flight.  I was destined for Lackland AFB in San Antonio and now it appears that I am being allowed to close the circle by returning to this same place almost 30 years later. 

I know, I have to watch out for expectations that can set me up for resentments.  No contracts have been signed yet.  But I am pretty sure this is going to happen.  If not, I will attempt to remember that “acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.” (Page 417 BB).

Earlier in my recovery, I wrote an inverted paraphrase of the 12 steps.  It is the page entitled, “The 12 Steps of Addiction.”  It was inspired by one thought that seemed valid at the time.  In reality, I am and have always been working a program of self-improvement.  That was the thought; whether I was drunk or sober, I had been working a program.  Before I entered the 12 step program of recovery, I was working a program of alcoholic integration and chemical empowerment.  I recognized the hard work I had invested in making the alcoholic oblivion work for me.  I needed to be able socialize with confidence.  At times, I needed a little bit of extra social courage.  Alcohol would do that for me.  I needed to be able to get over intense emotional pain or I was going to off myself.  Alcohol did that for me.  I needed to free myself to attempt more creative boldness.  Alcohol did that for me.  But it was like Frodo’s use of the Ring.  It was short term empowerment with long term costs.  In order to make alcoholism work for me, I had to find ways to minimize the impact of the consequences I was experiencing.  I had to find a way to deceive myself on a regular basis.  That is hard work.  The inverted paraphrase outlined pretty accurately for me the work that I would have to invest in order to make the alcoholic booster shot a viable solution.  But I did not realize that there is a point of diminishing returns with the progression of the disease.  I also did not realize that what I learned under the influenced seemed to remain hidden in a pocket of my brain that I could not access without alcohol.  So if I learned something to enhance some element of my creativity while I was drunk, I had to be drunk to access and use it again. 

The 12 Steps of Recovery have allowed me the opportunity to deal with emotional pain rather than hide from it.  I am also learning to express myself creatively, without passing out during the process.  And what I learn stays with me.  And I am beginning to love who I am, and this gives me a lifestyle of social confidence rather than flurries of social bravado.  When I talk to someone on a real level, I remember what I talked about the next day.  This allows me to build relationships. 

If alcohol or drugs works for you, I am not here to judge you.  I don’t want to change you.  If you find that you are experiencing diminishing  results and overwhelming consequences, I understand that as well.  Be true to yourself.  I am being true to myself, and honest with you, when I tell you that I enjoy being sober and learning how to get what I got back then, and KEEPING IT.

I am supposed to develop the habit of reviewing my day prior to surrendering to the slumber slut (I prefer that image over being visited by the sandman). 

“When we retire at night, we constructively review our day.  Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or AFRAID?  Do we owe an apology?  Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once?  Were we kind and loving toward all?  What could we have done better?  Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time?  Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life?  But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse, or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.  After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.” – page 85 Big Book

My sponsor said he heard someone in a meeting say that this is basically asking “How did my disease try to kill me today?”

I carry a fear that I will be misunderstood.  And that misunderstanding will disappoint.  And the disappointment will rob me of any attempt to clarify.  And I will be alone, quietly shunned, eventually by all have who truly known me.  Or that the misunderstanding will create expectations of me that I cannot possibly fulfill, and then I will be seen as a repulsive fake. 

I shared in the meeting tonight about the wonderful unity of people who normally would not mix.  Was I too frivolous?  I said hello to a new female insuring that she felt received after risking opening up.  Did she think I was marking territory?  Was I?  Did I seem perverted?  Did she perceive me as a threat?  I laid out expectations to My slave.  Did I inadvertently strike at the core of who she is?  Will she still love and worship me in the morning?  I was impatient with sponsee one rather than relating to where he was at.  Did that flaw in my sponsorship shine through?  Did I just create a dangling participle for those of you who are reading to discard everything due to a lack of grammatical integrity?

What a ball of shit to carry around.  I want to drink so that I do not have to feel that fear.  I want to become comfortably numb.

The 4th Step prayer dealing with Fear on Page 68:

“The verdict through the ages is that faith means courage.  All men of faith have courage.  They trust their God.  We never apologize for God.  Instead we let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do.  We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be.  At once, we commence to outgrow fear.”

The Efficiency prayer on the bottom of Page 87:

“As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.  We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day ‘Thy will be done.’  We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.  We become much more efficient.  We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.  It works – it really does.”

I have no control over what others think of me.  I have impact, but not control.  And when its time to walk the dog, it really doesn’t matter what others think or how well they understand.  Listen to me, voices in my head!  I am not the Higher Power.  I am not my own source!  Something out there is working on me.  Something out there wanted me to exist at this moment and time, to unfold and live and express me.  I am one of the inevitabilities of the universe.  I think the Higher Power just told you to talk to the hand.

Please slumber slut, take me away, before I truly embarrass myself.

Under intuitive inspiration I forged out a 3rd step prayer that I could honestly offer to the Higher Power, and still be true to myself.  I had to paraphrase what was in the book, because the book’s version was too religious for me.  My paraphrase ended with the phrase, “Thank-you for one more apple to eat, a bite at a time.”  I really found that curious, sense I am not much of an apple eater.  I like them.  Just don’t seek them out that often. 

I was watching the movie “Phenomena” with John Travolta a few days ago.  John was trying to comfort a couple of children about his upcoming death.  He had an apple in his hand and after taking a bite said that if he dropped that apple on the ground, it would rot, waste away.  Something of the sort.  Then he said that if you took a bite of the apple, it becomes apart of you.  He encouraged them to take a bite.  The little girl did so.  But the little boy could not release his hurt at the thought of losing someone again.  Then John told him, “Everything is going somewhere, everything.”  And the boy took the bite. 

There have been so many times that I have been given a fresh new apple by the universe, by this Higher Power that loves my existence, and I just let it drop to the ground.  I want to recognize each day as a fresh new gift, and learn to live in the moment of each bite, make it apart of me.

I have never successfully trusted my Higher Power in the financial arena, and I am afraid to do so now.  But I haven’t done such a good job at it myself.  Alcohol isn’t the only thing that makes me powerless.  The pursuit of money also strips me of the power to control my environ and it becomes a taskmaster over me, issuing its own code of morality.  I must be loyal to a company that doesn’t give a damn about me as a person.  Or I must spend my mental resources researching and perfecting financial skills even if that has nothing to do with the passions of my life.  And it doesn’t.  I am not a businessman.  I am creative and idealistic.  Yet I must put on a Richard Simmons smile and I must demonstrate that I am a good cog for the machine. 

If I succeed at marketing myself, I fail at being myself.  I am trapped, unless…

Step One:  We admitted we were powerless over money – that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step Two:  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to capitalistic sanity.

Step Three:  Made a decision to turn our financial will and our economic lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Step Four:  Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of financial lives.

Step Five:  Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

And thus the Higher Power has another cycle of empowering the powerless one.  Of transforming a victim into a victor.

I try to remember that my Higher Power has helped me to stay sober for over a year now.  Surely this God of my understanding will not turn from me now.  But I am afraid that my expectations will turn to resentments and unravel me.

This appears to be the next step for me.  If I cannot trust my Higher Power here, how can I turn my life over to Him-She – It?  So, I surrender.  I have come face to face with powerlessness once more.  In that surrender, I can relax.

3rd Step Promises on Page 63:

“When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed.  We had a new Employer.  Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well.  Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs.  More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life.  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 His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter.  We were reborn.”

I love being able to live out my Dominant inclanations without guilt or the fear of witchhunts.  And finding a peaceful cohabitation with this program’s demands for self examination, with a religious hunger for self-efacement can be a very challenging balance to achieve.  But the reality that sobriety is like a glass jar that holds everything I value in it has driven me forward.  This time last year, I was in a treatment facility for the second time missing the very special birthday of my slave.  We were debating whether I should release her.  And I was bracing myself for this possible consequence.  But the dynamic has powerfully bound us together, and another reality surfaced.  If I go down, I will take my slave with me.  This shattered any thought that I could crawl off into a hole somewhere and be forgotten while I self destructed.  it was always a delusion, but this really brought it home for me.  Her birthday approaches, and I am here.  I am sober.  And I am Dominant over her.  Self-enthronement will kill me and leave its aftershocks of destruction ever after.  But self-manifestation, that which is strong and rewarding about me, must manifest.  I was not built for a sobriety monastery.  The sabbath was made for the man, not man for the sabbath.  So I’ve heard.