Daily Reprieve

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.

I feel sadness at the loss of my mother…long before she died.  I feel sadness at the loss of my soul, long before I left home.  I feel sadness, grief for me.  I cannot save myself.  I am angry and hurt that there is not a god, Christian or otherwise, that can free me of this feeling of being cursed.

I have meditated on this sense of purgatory in my daily living.  The question I have often asked is, “Am I being punished?  If so, what am I guilty of?”

I am now feeling something else, a fear…not as deep as this sadness, but more urgent.  It is a fear that I will be misunderstood.

And futility settles over me, like the dirt shoveled in over a new grave, holding my lifeless form in place to complete this circle of life…

What shall I do after my Father passes?  He is really the last vestige of connection with my family of origin.  I am afraid that my brokeness is apart of my destiny, that these times require someone, not with great talents and skills, but with an intimate and unflinching association with death.  Someone who has finally embraced the black mantle, who can do the unthinkable…because it is what our species needs to move forward.

Illusions of grandeur?  They seem to make the pain turn to serenity for a moment, and offer a validation for this hidden suffering of mine.

New question; “Is this brokeness meant to be fixed, or is it meant to be embraced?  Do I feel cursed because I resist a purpose?  Do I resist a purpose because I fear being misunderstood, because I may have to fulfill it alone?  Others will only try to fix me.  If I accept myself, will I become unacceptable to society?  Is love too risky?  Is pulling others into my intimate sphere without an escape a terrible thing, making me like the god concept I resent?”

All of those who have a room in my intimate sphere also have a life beyond me.  My slave unfolds, has a husband, has reconnected with her own destiny in Academia.  My children have each other and an enviable network of support.  They know a confidence in life that I would like to have had as I entered the adult world.  And my Father will pass beyond the veil.

But this woman who has brought the possibility of love into my most intimate sanctum teases me with the idea that it could actually take up residence here.  Is this a message from a caring Universe?  Or maybe this is just another way to push forward the dagger of futility deep into my gullet so that I will not forget, that I am a servant of Death, and that purpose is superior to any human love I feel.

Temporarily, she came to me.  The curse lifted.  “Maybe I could have a co-conspirator in life.”  But I fear this dark mantle weighs heavy on her.  Maybe she is like me, hoping for an escape from what she is.  An ideal world in which together, we push out all other realities and nestle on an island of exclusiveness.  Now, I am sure I have misunderstood her vision, so I await her descriptives, to see if she can find the place of clarity to show me her home world.  I fear that I may actually be a blade in her flesh, as well.

What does our freedom look like?  If it is expressed, will it be a one way ticket to the human zoo?  Wanton, unruly, filthy, and vile?  Not good, not bad…just something necessary for a world in disequilibrium.

I don’t know.  I have a disease of perception.  I am delusional.  But, I am.

Went out with folks in recovery, with woman, ate, had meeting….saw moon guide.  Returning home, mood bottoms out, felt the need to get away, felt angry at people being around me.

My female and I paused in parking area of my apartment and searched the emotion I was feeling.  Utilized the approach I learned from my counselor … to feel the emotion, to identify what and how deep it was.  The I stated that I am afraid because…I feared the moon guide disapproves of me.  Further, I felt weak for feeling this.

Being able to identify this was very helpful.  Kept me from crashing.  I am recording this here to come back to later on, because it seems to indicate an unuseful idea.

Sponsor Quest:  My female, acting as an Oracle, said that it appears that I need to go on a sponsor quest.  And that resonates.  I love my current sponsor, but he himself told me that I should probably get another one, he is going through so much.  I told him that I do continue to value his friendship.  He suggested I go to an Alanon meeting, maybe look at getting an Alanon sponsor.  But the Oracular guidance suggest that I need an AA sponsor that is a cross between my current one, who has a great compassionate heart, and the Moon Guide, who speaks clearly and probes with insight, and is an AA sponsor.  An alcoholic.  My previous two sponsors have both been CA sponsors, who were primarily cocaine addicts.  It makes sense.

I have referred to myself as a tortoise in life and personal pursuits.  I mentioned this in a meeting after smarting from my most recent relapse.  It’s taking me so much time to get this program.  I was encouraged that the tortoise wins the race over the hare by shear persistance.  This was in a CA meeting I love, Everything or Nothing group.  We call it EON.

Later I attended another meeting at JAFI’s, an AA meeting.  The topic was on finding a sponsor.  The topic leader started off saying that if you come across a turtle sitting on a fencepost, you know it had help.  This seemed to be confirmation that I do need a new sponsor.  But I will keep contact with my Heart Sponsor-friend, and the Moon Guide sponsor, and the Dark Oracle of Recovery.  So I my focus in recovery is to listen for something and someone new.

I am grateful that I still have my 3 Sep 2011 sobriety date.

I have a new sobriety date.  3 Sep 2011.

The power went out yesterday, all day and most of today.  Windstorm echoing the violence of our coasts, the hurricane season is underway.  Appropriate backdrop for the chaos of yet another relapse.

I walked around my apartment, struggling to do and be what I need to be…It was quiet on the outside, loud on the inside.  I am slow and inconsistent in my college studies.  My assassin is strong today.  I am behind.  Do I have a learning difference that retards my progress?  Or just an overwhelming need to escape this reality?

And in the military, it seems I am slow in running because of the weakness in my lungs and the inconsistency of my heart.

God please help me want to live.

I do want to live, but not like this.  I am not suicidal right now, but I would like to earn the right to go ahead and pass beyond the veil.  My dreams do not and never have fit this life.

I care about others, but what is the relevance to that if I cannot succeed in caring for myself?

I am spiritually inconsistent.  I am tossed to and fro.

I have had wonderful things and relationships often in spite of my assassin’s assaults.  I have no complaints, nor do I blame anyone else.  No, really…I don’t have a black list for anyone today.  At least not right now.

Except myself.  And I am trying to get to the place that I can observe me without judgment.

Hey, this is a bit of hoot.  I wrote the following nine rules when I came face to face with my own distractibility, inconsistency, and procrastination this morning.  They were going to be the rules of academic obsession, but morphed into these:

1.  Does it work?  Use it!  Can you make it simpler?  Do it!

2.  Use sex-spiritual rituals to protect growth.

3.  Use sex-spiritual adventures to break limitations.

4.  Experience sex-spirituality in forbidden goals.

5.  Read Everything!

6.  Arrive early, leave late, exercise more.

7.  Start early, work late, sleep less.

8.  Write a priority list, then invert it.  (I almost always have it backwards)

9.  Do it now, today, as soon as assigned.

The storm has passed, and the power is back on.  I am still alive.

It is a bad habit that I am pretty sure what the assasin is saying to me, and get confused about the voice of the Infinite One.  I guess because the assasin has a home in my head, and I have to seek out time to actually know and connect with the Universe.  It seems it has become so much easier to self destruct.

I WANT TO LIVE!  God … help me.  Please.

This is a good description of confusing love and co-dependancy:  “If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Love, Pray)

English as a language is troublesome to the pursuit of spiritual ideas.  It speaks in what I call “bundle words.”  So many powerful meanings can be wrapped up in one word, meanings that take you in very different directions.  The only way to unravel their meaning is to provide a great deal of context.  Such is the case with the word HONESTY.  And this word is used often in recovery.

When I was in intimate relationships, and heard the question, “I just want you to be honest with me,”  I knew she meant that she wanted to gather enough information from me to control the situation.  It would not be a fair meeting of souls, but a secret trial conducted as I spoke my heart.  Screw that.

When considering the establishment of my sexual sanity in the moral inventory, I had to consider what it meant to be honest per the Big Book.  It is so filled with that bundle word.

This is what I concluded.  I believe that dishonesty comes in three categories and it is important to understand the difference.  Ricochet dishonesty, protective dishonesty, and manipulative dishonesty.  Ricochet dishonesty is dealt with in a process of self-discovery.  Protective dishonesty is the need to address a threat, real or imagined.  Manipulative dishonesty is an attempt to gain consent or compliance by creating an illusionary context for the decision-making process,  External realities are usually outweighed by internal costs, for the manipulator.

Selfishness is another English bundle word.  I believe that the most mutually satisfying sexual relationship is inherently selfish, and to fail to recognize this fact is to fall prey to ricochet dishonesty.  The mate will conclude, over time, “I don’t even know you anymore.”  So in terms of sexual intimacy, there is need recognition selfishness, empathy neutralizing objectification, and impulsive selfishness which is the same as inconsideration and plays out as sexual stupidity.

So when considering my sexual relationships, I modify the Big Book questions as follows:

1.  Where have I been ricochet, protective, or manipulatively dishonest?  Where have I misused need-recognition and empathy neutralization?  Where has my impulsive inconsiderations made me sexually stupid?

2.  The question, “Whom have I hurt?” is also too broad.  Hurting someone else or being hurt by someone can be very beneficial in getting to know yourself or others.  For me, the question is better worded, Whose core have I hurt retarding the expression of their personal mythology?

I found no need to change the remaining questions;

Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, or bitterness?

Where we at fault, what should we have done instead?

Through the 4th step inventory I have identified the following unuseful ideas that the Assassin in my head uses against me:

1.  God is a manipulator (A co-dependant assertion, a family of origin adaption)

~ God is not interested in me, only in controlling me for his own purposes, to protect his distant control on the human species.

~ God wants to control me for his purposes, wants me to be his sissy whore.  He uses my heart’s desires against me.  He has no desire for my ultimate success, only my advancement to control others.

~ If I get out of line, God has a kill switch to amplify my lusts and natural desires to consume me, or, if I am able to overcome that, God can use my disconnected strength to turn me into a predator.

2.  In order to love others, you must hate yourself (confusing compassion and empathy with co-dependency)

~ You must hate yourself to love another.  The depth of effective love is measured in the level of self-hatred you can embody.

3.  I lack potency. (Public school peer interaction in conjunction with distrust of outsiders)

~ 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.

~ Uncontrolled and spiritually undeveloped people will attack or hurt me.

~ 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.

~ Honesty is a social control mechanism and has very little to do with the discovery of truth.

~ My internal reality is more important than my external reality

4.  I am bound by family icons of devotion, resulting in the two statements on failure.  Outside the family, inevitable and lethal.

~ If I desire to be free of emotional blackmail and manipulation, I must accept that failure is inevitable and I will disappoint those who become intimate, who get close to me.

~ If my failure is exposed, what is left of my honor demands my death.