Made A Decision

                    When Bad Times Arrive

On that August day in 2010 there were police cars, a forensics van, crime scene tape, people huddled together in the blistering heat and Christy's two small dogs panting with nervousness on the front lawn. 

My head struggled to compute.

I had arrived at the home of my sponsee to house and pet sit for a couple of days while she went on an out-of-town job interview.

 

There would be no job interview. Christy had been murdered.

I remember every detail of that horrible day in technicolor, but I won't inflict those brutal details into your psyche. Just know that those of us in recovery who knew and loved her didn't drink over our loss, including her own mother.

 Instead, in the days following Christy's death, we circled our wagons, took care of her beloved pets, dealt with the police, stayed with her Mom, and held one another up. We went to a lot of meetings. 

We didn't drink - because we were there to help one another get through it.

I spoke at her packed tear-wracked funeral. But there was laughter, too, as we remembered Christy's own dry humor. We all knew what we had lost in the horrible death of our sober friend, but we also knew she would never, ever, want us to drink over our loss. 

No one who knew her did. To drink would have dishonoured Christy's memory. Instead, because we were sober, we could be there for all that had mattered to her.

Out of every experience of grief or suffering, when our Higher Power seems distant or absent, we discover new strengths within ourselves to see us through. We are then better able to help others get through their own tough times.

We all want to live happily-ever-after every single day of our sober lives. Sadly, life doesn't work like that. While it's true a sober life offers us wonderful opportunities, amazing friends, and "a life beyond our wildest dreams," it also carries with it "life lessons," and some of them can be harsh.

The good news is, when tough stuff shows up, so does our Higher Power, along with our AA friends and all the tools for living a good sober life we've learned in recovery.

We often hear the saying "God never gives us more than we can handle," and while that is actually true, it sure as hell doesn't feel like it in the really bad times. 

But those tough times are our strengthening times, our growth times, our testing times, and sometimes our opportunities for offering our greatest service to others. 

A clay pot always remains a clay pot until it's bathed in fire to become porcelain. 

When we live long enough we experience loss. 

Loss of friends. Loss of parents. Loss of a job, family members, a house, beloved pets. No one gets off scott free. Pain comes to us all. The revelation to us is - we don't have to drink over any of it. 

 

Instead, pain, suffering, grief, fear and loss all drive us to our knees where we once again find the Holy Presence to lift us. When we are in a situation beyond our heart and mind's ability to understand, we become able to reach a deeper level of spiritual understanding. We surrender to accept - and to learn.

We then can take the understandings that develop and put them to use in service to others. 

It's the same lesson - force ten - that we had when we surrendered to a Power Greater than Ourselves our desire and compulsion to drink. 

I can't promise anyone they can stay sober through pain until I've stayed sober through my own. And I have. And I will. And you can, too. 

Yesterday I had an interesting day. It was filled with AA friends from all over the world, much laughter, a great online meeting, sunshine lighting up my garden, a letter from my just-turned-21-year-old grandson, music drifting up from the village festival in the valley below our mountain - and news of the death of an AA friend in Ireland.

So my yesterday was one of connection, an AA meeting, being outdoors, family news, humor, music, glued together with loss and sadness. 

One Day at a Time that's just what life is, a mixture of emotions in which we seek to understand the heart, mind, and will of our Higher Power - and of ourselves.

 

    Made a Decision

                    The "Selfish Program" of Alcoholics Anonymous.

AA can get confusing. 

We get told we're "self-centered" and need to think of others - but then we’re advised that AA is "a selfish program" where we need to put ourselves first.

We're told we need to learn to love ourselves, but then we're told we should aim to follow the 3rd step prayer to the letter. Here it is:

 "God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!"

(In my earliest meetings I called the 3rd step prayer "the Codependent Prayer," and it used to annoy the hell out of me. Which shows the little sunbeam I was at the start of my spiritual journey.) 

AA is actually only "selfish" in the sense that its recovery program must come first in the life of a recovering addict. 

Many newcomers think their family must come first, or their job, or their social standing ... but without sobriety all those things (and more) will eventually be gone from the alcoholic's life. 

And if family, career, licenses, respect and hope are already gone, they can - and often do - return after the alcoholic experiences a period of good recovery in AA.

                          (Without sobriety the losses just continue.)

The main difference between self-centered and selfish people is that a self-centered person has an excessive interest and concern for oneself, while a selfish person - in addition to that self interest and concern - also lacks consideration for others. 

Shrinks tell us that self-centered folks feel vulnerable, threatened and anxious about other people. There's often a fear of being unable to love or be loved.

If all that's true, then there's a lot of emotional pain wrapped up in being self-centered, and it can take a long old time in recovery to overcome it. 

But, according to our Big Book, it's work we must do because it's vital to our sobriety. Our book makes that crystal clear, stating: "Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles ... above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us!"

The Big Book also states alcoholism is a disease of self-centeredness. 

Then there's self-will, meaning a person dedicated to sticking to their own opinion and ideas, no matter what. These folks are convinced they are right and are willing to argue with anyone who might disagree.

 Our Book lets us know alcoholics are textbook cases of "self-will run riot." 

Like everyone with a bad case of selfish self-willed self-centeredness, I also suffered plenty of self-delusion and self-pity when I arrived in AA. We pretty much all seem to arrive with that kind of baggage to unpack. 

And we learn how to do that by doing it. Once we learn, and do the work of recovery, our lives - and relationships - get a lot easier.

Right there in the much-read Chapter Five it states: "Whatever our protestations, are not most of us concerned with ourselves, our resentments or our self-pity? That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate."

In other words: When we sober up physically and emotionally, and stop stepping on the toes and feelings of others, we don't get clobbered in return.

Selfishness, self-centeredness, and self-seeking all crop up throughout our AA literature, from the Big Book to the 12&12, and even in our much-loved AA Promises where we are told "self-seeking will slip away."

All my life before AA, and long-after in recovery, I expected people to do things for me and resented them if they didn't. I thought my wealthier friends should pick up the lunch tab. I thought they should always consider me to be their "best friend," not just "a friend." I thought they should find my monopolizing our conversations as endearing and not annoying. 

Self-centered? Me? Well, yes indeedy I was. To the extreme.

 (And I still can me when I stop paying attention!)

It takes clearing away the wreckage of the past, learning new ways to live, caring for our fellow AA members through service work, prayer and meditation, and a growing self-awareness before we can even see that we were indeed "self-will run riot" in our lives and in the lives of others.

We learn from our readings, our step work, our sponsors and our group members how to win out over our egocentric thoughts and actions. 

And now we’re back to my favorite non-word again: 

all of this takes a bit of SLOW-briety.

 

 Made A Decision

                       

                          Uniquely Qualified

"Giving good wishes to others acts like sunlight, filtering into

 the dark corners of their minds and lightening their burden."

Who wouldn't want to do that?

We didn't -

not back in those nightmare years of alcohol abuse.

But now that we're awake in AA we have better dreams - dreams that include helping others wake from their alcoholic nightmare, too. 

Never fall into the trap of thinking you're too new in recovery to actually become the hand of AA that reaches out to others ... you reached out to others at your very first meeting by your courage in being there.

And by coming back for your second meeting you inspired us all once again.

As author Oswald Chambers wrote: "God’s training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future."

As our own Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions book states:

"It was discovered that when one alcoholic had planted in the mind of another the true nature of his malady, that person could never be the same again."

In AA we learn our job is to try to bring out the good, not to

 criticize the bad. Every alcoholic has suffered plenty being

 criticized and judged. That didn't get us sober. 

Hearing that we could change ... that there was a solution for

 our problem ... that was the key.

And it's AA members who hand the still-suffering alcoholic the keys to the kingdom.

We are uniquely qualified to do so.

We know from experience what the newcomer is fearing and feeling.

And we know the freedom they'll find in AA. 

We don't look for "the bad" in our newcomers, we look for the

 good.

 That kind of "judging others" always pays off.

We encourage the good points we find and ignore any bad, knowing the good will quickly win out as recovery takes hold.

Like most of us (all?) I arrived in AA thinking my life was over.

 That I was the ultimate loser. That now a thirsty life without

 being able to take a drink was all that lay ahead for me.

Oh, woe!

But I left my first meeting with a new thought ... and with a

 smidgen of hope ...

that the people in that meeting had the answer I needed;

 maybe my life wasn't over? Maybe, just maybe, better days

 were in store?

The people in my first meeting instilled that in me. They said all the right things. Because they had lived it they knew all the right things to say. They told me I could have a wonderful sober life, one beyond my wildest dreams, if I just gave AA a fair trial. 

And they were right! 

When we extend the hand of AA we can expect miracles of change in people's lives. We know people can be changed. All we have to do is look in the mirror!

Our troubled world needs good people helping others. We are

 good people reflecting the goodness and strength we have

 learned in AA.

 And what we do for others has impact in helping them

 become all they are meant to be, too.

 We must never doubt our ability to channel God's strength for

others. 

What we give we also receive. When we offer strength to

 others we strengthen ourselves.

Bill W., regarding his first meeting ever with Dr. Bob, the

 meeting that was to launch our wonderful program of

 recovery, perhaps said it best:

        "Dr. Bob did not need me for his spiritual instruction. He had

 already had more of that than I. 

What he did need, when we first met, was the deflation at depth and the understanding that only one drunk can give to another. 

What I needed was the humility of self-forgetfulness and the kinship with another human being of my own kind."

 

Blog repost from July 2022

Made a Decision

Life Lessons Are Never Easy

I'm in the middle of a life "lesson" at the moment and I'm feeling like I'm not doing all that great with parts of it. 

Life lessons are never easy for us alcoholics at any time in recovery. Sometimes old character defects we thought we’d surrendered long ago come back in a new and different guise to let us know we still have more work to do in that area.

My lesson involves difficult neighbors. 

I'm praying for them, doing my best to always be civil with them, not retaliating (much) over their attempts to control my behavior, and surrendering them daily to my Higher Power.

So far I have not smacked anyone upside the head, but the desire has been there a time or two. I've had to keep praying it away.

In our Big Book it says:  "... A.A. is a synthesis of all the philosophy I've ever read, all of the positive, good philosophy, all of it based on love. I have seen that there is only one law, the law of love, and there are only two sins; the first is to interfere with the growth of another human being, and the second is to interfere with one's own growth."

I believe every word of that quote. I know my neighbors are operating from pure motives in wanting to protect me from myself. They don't believe in vaccinations or mask wearing and they flood me with "information" about the dangers of same. 

 Earlier this week I politely (and without even a hint of sarcasm - gold star me) offered them some alternative websites to look at for information and said I respect their right to their opinions and only ask that they show me the same respect.

 I felt pretty good about that. 

So the following day they left me a pissy note saying I shouldn't continue to feed the neighborhood feral cats, because the food attracts rats and other vermin. I have managed to resist telling them cats kill vermin, because that will only escalate the problem. That's how wars get started - and continue.

There was a time I could have drunk over an irritating little problem like this one, or do something mean to harm them in some way, or sulked, hid, not talked to them or - worse - talked to them quite loudly and viciously. 

But in AA I have learned to believe in the power of love by having seen it in action. I've seen how it can - and does - change people for the better. It works, when we work it.

                                     I don’t want to be at war with my neighbors. 

So I'm not going to react to my current "lesson" with old behavior.

 I already know how to annihilate people. I still don't always know how to love them, though, but I'm working on it.

And it’s not just one character defect poking me with a stick right now, either. I also know how to manipulate people, having at one time been quite good at it.

I’ve done a negative bit of that this week, too. 

Acceptance, of course, is the key to getting through this lesson with a minimum of harm being done to others or to myself. So is striving for patience, tolerance, kindness and a lot less self-centeredness. 

Thank God I have the AA tool kit to work with right now. But even with it wide open in front of me, I still have moments of wanting to hammer the problem into a shape I like, rather than reaching for a tool I find more difficult to use.  

The lesson I’m here to learn from today appears to be mostly the application of "The Golden Rule" …  to do unto others as I would have them do unto me.

I’ll be a better person if I can manage to learn what my annoying neighbors are here to teach me about me, and to work on it - and to continue working - no matter how they respond.

We all have lessons our Higher Power sends to teach us. 

What's yours today?

_________________________________________________________________

Epilogue - this blog was written in July of 2022. I continued to pray for my pissy neighbors every day and two short months later they had a fight with our landlord, broke their rental contract, and moved to another town. 

Prayer changes things in ways we can never anticipate. 

Our program "works" when we work it. 

 

Blog repost from July 2022

Made a Decision

Life Lessons Are Never Easy

I'm in the middle of a life "lesson" at the moment and I'm feeling like I'm not doing all that great with parts of it. 

Life lessons are never easy for us alcoholics at any time in recovery. Sometimes old character defects we thought we’d surrendered long ago come back in a new and different guise to let us know we still have more work to do in that area.

My lesson involves difficult neighbors. 

I'm praying for them, doing my best to always be civil with them, not retaliating (much) over their attempts to control my behavior, and surrendering them daily to my Higher Power.

So far I have not smacked anyone upside the head, but the desire has been there a time or two. I've had to keep praying it away.

In our Big Book it says:  "... A.A. is a synthesis of all the philosophy I've ever read, all of the positive, good philosophy, all of it based on love. I have seen that there is only one law, the law of love, and there are only two sins; the first is to interfere with the growth of another human being, and the second is to interfere with one's own growth."

I believe every word of that quote. I know my neighbors are operating from pure motives in wanting to protect me from myself. They don't believe in vaccinations or mask wearing and they flood me with "information" about the dangers of same. 

 Earlier this week I politely (and without even a hint of sarcasm - gold star me) offered them some alternative websites to look at for information and said I respect their right to their opinions and only ask that they show me the same respect.

 I felt pretty good about that. 

So the following day they left me a pissy note saying I shouldn't continue to feed the neighborhood feral cats, because the food attracts rats and other vermin. I have managed to resist telling them cats kill vermin, because that will only escalate the problem. That's how wars get started - and continue.

There was a time I could have drunk over an irritating little problem like this one, or do something mean to harm them in some way, or sulked, hid, not talked to them or - worse - talked to them quite loudly and viciously. 

But in AA I have learned to believe in the power of love by having seen it in action. I've seen how it can - and does - change people for the better. It works, when we work it.

                                     I don’t want to be at war with my neighbors. 

So I'm not going to react to my current "lesson" with old behavior.

 I already know how to annihilate people. I still don't always know how to love them, though, but I'm working on it.

And it’s not just one character defect poking me with a stick right now, either. I also know how to manipulate people, having at one time been quite good at it.

I’ve done a negative bit of that this week, too. 

Acceptance, of course, is the key to getting through this lesson with a minimum of harm being done to others or to myself. So is striving for patience, tolerance, kindness and a lot less self-centeredness. 

Thank God I have the AA tool kit to work with right now. But even with it wide open in front of me, I still have moments of wanting to hammer the problem into a shape I like, rather than reaching for a tool I find more difficult to use.  

The lesson I’m here to learn from today appears to be mostly the application of "The Golden Rule" …  to do unto others as I would have them do unto me.

I’ll be a better person if I can manage to learn what my annoying neighbors are here to teach me about me, and to work on it - and to continue working - no matter how they respond.

We all have lessons our Higher Power sends to teach us. 

What's yours today?

_________________________________________________________________

Epilogue - this blog was written in July of 2022. I continued to pray for my pissy neighbors every day and two short months later they had a fight with our landlord, broke their rental contract, and moved to another town. 

Prayer changes things in ways we can never anticipate. 

Our program "works" when we work it.