Daily Reprieve

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.

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.