We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

intuition – –noun

For me there can be no question that the fog of alcohol made understanding anything pretty impossible.

I love the paradoxes of AA and alcoholism.  “The trap door had become a trap.”  I thought I understood things better under the influence.  I thought it made me calmer and turned down some of the noise in my head so I could just go along with things better.  I can see now that it clouded each and every thing in my life and put my understanding further back each time.

More recently, I know that as I live longer and experience more I grow in understanding and appreciation.  For me, getting older in time and older in the program work together, I think, to reveal more to me about the way the world works and how I can work within it.

As an example, I often find that first thing in the morning at work is difficult for me because of tricky staff scheduling.  Because I see it as difficult, I’ve tried to apply what I can from the program to that situation and hopefully I get better at it and less distressed.  The situation won’t change but me thoughts about it can and will.

As I try to become a better dog walker, I work on my internal thoughts and the way I handle the dog.  As I read books and watch shows about dogs I increase my understanding of them and I improve my ability to “handle situations.”

There is the passage of time, and essentially the passage of time that is sober and clear.  There’s also the philosophy of the program that makes me want to improve all situations, and gives me a framework to use and help with using it.

I do not believe in special providences.  I believe that the universe is governed by strict and immutable laws.  If one man’s family is swept away by a pestilence and another man’s spared it is only the law working: God is not interfering in that small matter, either against the one man or in favor of the other. — Mark Twain

This concept does not, to me, mean therefore there is no God.  What is means to me is that I have been very very lucky, and I don’t know when my luck will change.  It means to me that I am the same as everyone else.  I haven’t been spared for a reason.  It’s completely up to me if I use my good luck to benefit others.

It’s not tit for tat in the universe of karma, but AA gives me special reasons to help others.  It tells me that I can’t continue to do well unless I help others.  I take it seriously and I would help, I hope, even if I didn’t actually need to.  But I won’t find that out in this lifetime.

These next few weeks will be hectic.  My mother is visiting for Thanksgiving, coming from Monday until the next Tuesday.  I’ve taken time off from work around that, but we have inspections on that Tuesday and Wednesday.  At work, we also have a Thanksgiving feast, an open house where we sells crafty things, and a Christmas party.  Kind of makes me look forward to the after Christmas lull.

I have a resentment that stings like a bitch!  Someone treated me badly (the admonishment I wrote of earlier) and I don’t know how to deal with it.  Forgiveness is not a problem.  This person is forgiven.  Now what?  Act like nothing happened?  I feel like I’ve been struck.   Demand an apology?  That seems like forcing someone to adhere to a religion, completely missing the point.  I just don’t know what to do.  Or refrain from doing.

But an upside already is that I appreciate so much more the way my parents, really my mother raised me, in a nonviolent way.  Yelling at people, swearing, showing anger and trying to overpower someone is not acceptable to me.  It’s not going to get my cooperation (maybe because I am obstinate it will do the opposite and set me in opposition).  I’m so very glad my I don’t approach life this way and when I do display these things, I recognize this is a complete breakdown of civility for me.  I’m also grateful that this really doesn’t come up for me.  The last time I can think of is when the irate father of a little boy yelled at me for accusing the boy of hitting my daughter when they were five years old and waiting for the bus.  The father then spied on the kids and came back and apologized when he saw the situation for himself.  That was a sincere apology but, in my book, he had acted wrongly to begin with even if he believed his child to be innocent.

OK, time for me to put away “my book.”

There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation, and prayer.  Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit.  But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life.  Now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality which is God’s kingdom.  And we will be comforted and assured that our own destiny in that realm will be secure for so long as we try, however falteringly, to find and do the will of our Creator.

Houston, I have a problem.

I love AA I live AA I am AA.

My destiny in the realm?  I can’t look at this as a promise of an afterlife.  I can’t.  So keeping that in mind (firmly), I’ll go on.

I don’t know what happened to me to make me so determined to separate religion and spirituality from promises of eternity.  But anyway.

I need to put down the book for a minute or six.

I love fading ads and I like to think of all the time and money, energy and hope that went into things that are now gone.

Like a good AA, I realize the promise is that my fear will leave me, not actual economic insecurity.

One of the aspects of AA that I love is that it does not promise a rose garden.  I hear lots of members voice that everything has always worked out for them, and so they expect it will continue to do so.  But I don’t think that way.

The Big Book lists calamities that happen to people beyond what I have had to endure, so I know the program doesn’t say these things won’t happen.  Just that I have a chance to endure them and come out a better person if I work the program.

I’ve come a long way with this fear.  I had a “depression” mentality passed down to me from my grandparents, who were young adults during the Great Depression, through my mother and to me.  As far as we descendants know and can tell, my grandparents did not suffer great deprivation or any hunger during the depression.  The nearest suffering of that type that I know about happened to my great grandmother and her daughter and her daughters two children when they were German refugees inside Germany during WWII.

As a young adult myself, I was very frightened of economic insecurity, especially after my daughter was born.  I did not want to put her in daycare, and her father was out of work several times during her babyhood.  I had different fears when I was on my own with the two kids, but I had realized some time before that that most of the homeless families I saw on TV had, for whatever reason, no support.  I had the support of my mother and in-laws, and I wouldn’t be homeless no matter what.

So I learned that as I went along.  Working the program and practicing positive, realistic thinking helped tremendously.  Also I’m sure that just aging and maturing helped me get over my fear.

I was just talking to my mother about how things are where she and I used to work.  There have, for the first time ever, been layoffs there, and it’s frightening.  She was telling me about a friend of hers who works there and is married with two children in their 30s.  Many years ago, the friend’s husband lost what would have been thought of as a life long career with a big defense contractor.  That’s when the friend went back to work with my mother.  Since then her kids have graduated from college with degrees in music and both are living home, unemployed.  The husband is also unemployed.

So much of it has to do with the economy.  It makes us be a bit frightened for Nicholas, since he is racking up major college debt.  He goes to a wonderful school and he is very bright, but you never know.  And it causes me concern, but not fear.

Carole has been able to provide me and Nicholas with health insurance since her employer started covering same sex partners.  I show up as “dependent” on the insurance card and I really want everyone to know that I am not dependent, and I have and still can cover myself and my dependent child all by myself.  For today.

I hardly slept last night because of a pain in my neck.  Two weeks ago, I did something to my neck, and it’s been mildly achy to very ouchy off and on since then.  Mostly it would hurt when I turned my head in the car to see my blind spot.  I know there’s a metaphor there somewhere.  But the night before last I had a hard time laying down.  The bad pain has actually moved to the other side now.  Last night it was impossible, once I’d laid down, for me to move at all without bad pain.  So that made sleeping difficult.

I don’t like doctors and I don’t like massage and I really don’t like pills.  I’m sitting here with a heating pad wrapped around my neck and I’m wondering if I try not to move it today, if that will help it feel better.  I’ve also taken three Ibuprofen and this is just no fun at all.

What was fun was my meeting last night.  Some friends brought their dogs over and that’s stressful, but my happiness that my big girl has company, even if she’d rather not, outweighs the stress of barking dogs.  Our yard is fenced and our meeting is across the street so they left their dogs here for the meeting.

At the meeting, the woman I asked to tell her story and lead the discussion revealed that her sobriety year is 1984, like mine.  There was one other person there from the class of ‘84 which I thought was amazing.  Others were celebrating anniversaries – 17 years, two years, and 8 months.  And a woman was there for her very first meeting.  All that put together was so cool.  I can’t help but wonder if the newcomer will be one of the lucky ones, even as I know the odds are against it.

I also have a bit of jealousy for some of the people who got sober around here and are still here.  I did not know the other 1984s when I was getting sober.  They were here and I was 400 miles away.  There are very sadly few people I know from when I was getting sober.  I can think of four who I could call and they would know who I am.  One I’m still in touch with because her daughter moved to my exact present location shortly after I moved.  One I never lost touch with but I’ve only seen her once since I moved, because she also moved away from where we lived, but in a different direction.  One woman and I had baby girls one years and one day apart, and because of the kindergarten cut off date where I lived when Erika started school, when we moved back home, she was in the same class and became friends with this woman’s daughter.  So we’ve been in touch and our daughters are still “Facebook” friends.

So anyway I do feel the jealousy of the longer history some of these people have with each other.  But it’s just a twinge and I stamp it down fast.  I’m very abundantly blessed in this time and in this place and even my pain in the neck is temporary.  Today is going to be another great weather day and I’ll take the darn computer outside to keep the dogs company in the awesome fall day.

Those of us who have come to make regular use of prayer would no more do without it than we would refuse air, food, or sunshine.  And for the same reason.  When we refuse air, light, or food, the body suffers.  And when we turn away from meditation and prayer, we likewise deprive our minds, our emotions, and our intuitions of vitally needed support.  As the body can fail its purpose for lack of nourishment, so can the soul.  We all need the light of God’s reality, the nourishment of His strength, and the atmosphere of His grace.  To an amazing extent the facts of A.A. life confirm this ageless truth.

It has become so ingrained in me that I doubt I could stop praying, let alone refuse to.

The prayers I habitually say and learn help remind me of an ideal.  The prayers I say under pressure help me turn away from those excesses of negative emotion at least a little bit.  Prayer instantly reminds me that I’m a human being with human happenings.  It does not, for me, remind me that everything will OK and all things will be set right.  I don’t believe those ideas to be true.  I don’t feel that God watches out for me or over me anymore than he does anyone else, and bad things do happen to good people.

Prayer can remind me that I’m not in control.  It can remind me of the ideal, “absolute” ways I seek to be, to move a little closer to being there.

• The big cat will not hurt the little cat.
• The big dog will not hurt either cat.
• The little cat hasn’t learned this yet, and is trying to look intimidating.
• I am only intimidating when I am walking the big dog.
• I fear animal violence daily, but not people violence.
• I’ve been safe every day of my life.
• I have lost the fear I felt of people when I had to wonder what I had said or done, what I failed to do or lied about, when I was drinking.  That fear left immediately and I rejoiced in the absence.
• There is a person who will hold the fact that I admit I lied when drinking against me now, 25 years later.
• This person is not my mother, who is the person in my life who I lied to the most.  She was 45 years old then, and I was 22.  She’s 70 now and I’m 47 and she never mentions this to me.  The person who mentions this to me never knew me when I was drinking.
• I hide two things from my work partner, Irene, that I don’t hide from anyone else.  I have not told her that I’m an alcoholic in AA, although she knows that I do not drink and will not drink.  I have not told her that I’m going on vacation with someone we used to work with, although I have told her I am still in touch with this person and that this person is a dear friend.
• What’s behind that, I think, is that my work partner is often (daily) judgmental and unhappy with me, albeit briefly.  Mostly our relationship is an extraordinary partnership that I think few people experience at work or anywhere.
• Again, when a certain someone wants to put me down, this person will bring up my lack of condor with my partner.  Aside from those two incomplete admissions, I think I am a very honest person.  Really.  And if I could wave into her the knowledge of those situations, I would.  Just the awkwardness of how long this has gone on stops me.  I feel that one day she will know the complete truths.
• It has come to my attention that some people in my life carry guns in their cars.  This scares me more than anything else, day to day, I think.  I don’t get that mentality and I firmly believe life is more dangerous when you carry a gun.
• I have always been very very lucky to live and work and travel in safe places.  I have not experienced fear in my neighborhood or house, school or workplace.
• I’m an introvert, and I dislike interaction with strangers, although I do it when I have to.  I cannot imagine what my life would be like without AA and all I’ve heard of so many strangers over the years.

Like a sore tooth, when my mind is quiet for a second it goes back to poke the admonishment I got the other night.  In addition to asking this person for his career advice, I would like to seek his opinion on my parenting.  None of this is even a little bit loving.  See, my marriage is better than yours.  My sobriety is better than yours.  My career is better than yours.  My children are better than yours.  Tell me again what I should do?

And since I’m recording my messed up oldtimer thinking, I’ll record that I think 25 years (or however many) of sobriety are a handy target for anyone’s anger.  When I worked my first job, my mother gave me the job, and twice in six years (twice that I know of), when someone was angry with me, there came the phrase, “I don’t care who her mother is.”  My son is very bright, and I know it’s happened to him.  “I don’t care how smart you are.”  I imagine it happens from time to time with most people who have something outstanding.  And I’m sorry, 25 years of sobriety is outstanding.  If I drink tonight, I still accomplished (with AA, I couldn’t do it without AA) something wonderful and it’s unfortunate that someone who can’t stop drinking would attack that.  This is actually only the second time someone has said something like that to me.  Not counting Carole, but I think all in love is fair.  Ten years ago a friend of hers made a nasty remark about my then 15 years of sobriety and unfortunately, that person is dead.  Killed by a lack of sobriety.

So, just getting this off my chest, I hope.  I know it actually traumatized me a bit.  I’m very grateful that my parents never hit me or yelled or swore much, and I have a low tolerance for it now.  This person approached me that way.  Not concerned, not sad, but angry and attacking.  I don’t get attacked often.  I respond by defending myself by turning off and tuning out and going away.  Really, was the anger supposed to make me come to my senses?  It didn’t.  It made the messenger seem over the top and out of control.  An expression of concern might have made me consider his point more positively, rather than bringing to mind all I think of when I “consider the source.”

Again, I’m very glad that this is a very rare occurrence.  I wonder what I will learn from it.  This is someone who I expect I will know for a very long time, so I guess I’ll see.

I left work early today to go get a mammogram.  That’s always a bit frightening, and from time to time I practiced relaxing in the fear in preparation to fly.  I was all clear for another year and I thought of many things to add to the gratitude list.  The leaving work early, and not going in at all tomorrow to work off site and then come home, causes me anxiety and I’m determined that after my flight I will put what I learn into use against my worry about work and the dog.  I really will.

And last night, Carole and I went to a meeting we had never been to before.  It was less than 20 miles away.  We live in a suburb of a small city so 20 miles can take some time to cross.  I bet we couldn’t go to a meeting that close by without seeing someone we (or really she) knows, and we did know one person out of the bunch.  I like to experience different meetings even though it’s always a bit uncomfortable for me not the know the routine and the regulars.  It does take a lot of the social drama away from the meeting, which is interesting.

Of course we finally did experiment, and when unexpected results followed, we felt different; in fact we knew different; and so we were sold on meditation and prayer.  And that, we have found, can happen to anybody who tries.  It has been well said that “almost the only scoffers at prayer are those who never tried it enough.”

I like the statement that of course we finally did experiment.  That holds true for me for all of the program of AA.  As I bashed my head against the active alcoholic wall, I finally experimented with prayer and meetings and steps and the rest of it.

I remember trying prayer years ago, when I was trying to get sober, only in desperation.  Two years ago (or so), I started collecting some new prayers and trying to memorize them.  I have given up trying to memorize but I do rotate them in the sidebar here so that I write them again and again.  I have a 5 subject notebook I use at work, and one of the subjects is these prayers that I write there at different times during the day, and especially when things are tough.

A friend asked a group of us what is the purpose of prayer?  I do not use it as a means of influencing God but rather as a way to put new and better thoughts in my own head.

I’ve been having a rough time of it (it being unmentionable) for the last little while.  Tonight someone admonished me for my actions in the program and in my marriage.  This person is a chronic relapser of the kind I used to be.  This person has had a failed marriage of the kind I was in that failed.  This person is unemployed, but did not yet offer me career advice.  Still the thought just won’t go away that says something like, “Please excuse me and understand if I do not take program or marriage advice from you.”

I didn’t say that, and I know I won’t ever say that, but the interaction was disturbing and I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget it nor will I entirely cease to be disturbed by it.  It’s not often that someone besides my mother cuts me like that.  Actually it’s not often that anyone cuts me like that.   Lord release me from my thoughts of WTF??

Toward this person I know what the right thoughts are and WTF doesn’t apply.

• Willingness – David Ridge

  Let my heart be the vessel of God’s Love.
  Let my thoughts be the blossom of God’s Love.
  Let my words be the expression of God’s Love.
  Let my actions be the fulfillment of God’s Love.