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 control 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.

As I sat here waiting for the computer to reboot so I could write about my new attitude and outlook, my old attitude and outlook have clouded the warm, sunny air of this warm, sunny day.  Not my old old attitude and outlook.  Not the one from my drunken, 16-21 year old days.

That’s changed completely.  Drinking, I found reality so challenging that I could not cope.  Now, I would absolutely hate to think that I’d miss some of life, even the bad parts, to unconsciousness, drunkenness and black outs.

My attitude is that I am blessed among humans beyond measure.  The bad things that come my way are cake compared to what some people deal with.  I don’t know what I’ll get in the future, but all I’ve received so far puts me way beyond what I could ever hope to deserve.

My outlook is that most people, most especially the ones I come into contact with daily, are mostly good and thoughtful and willing to help.  Even at my age, I have almost unlimited opportunities, and certainly enough opportunity to do what I want to do.  Even in my most awful, trying times, times like when my children are in trouble and the outcome is uncertain, there is something in me that strives to be peaceful and content.

Positive things like fun and love and creativity are abundant in my life and it seems like they will be so in the future.  I can devote lots of my time to pursuits beyond making a living and providing money for life’s necessities.  There is so much to learn I can never begin to scratch the surface.

Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone, but I’m reasonably secure in the belief that my loved ones and I will have all the resources someone can have to meet any emergency.  My primary relationships are intact to the degree that I envision them continuing.  Sort of happily.  Not 100% on that one.

Upon life.  Yes.  That has changed from when I wanted to die to now when I want to live.  I used to find existence too too difficult to take it straight.  I understand now that straight is the only possibility for me.  And I wouldn’t change that with the magic pill or cure.

I’m dealing with physical female problems and I struggle not to let that dominate every part of every day and night.  There is an end in sight, I just don’t know how far away the end is.  And it’s not that big a deal to begin with.

I have the “FlightAware” map of my airport up on the computer, and I check it occasionally to make sure all the planes are still there.  They are.  I purchased a DVD from 1994 that shows kids how a plane flies and how an airport works.  I have YouTube Videos saved that show take offs and landings and the view out the window when the plane is in flight.  In a few minutes, Carole and I will try to watch Hawaiian post card, or something.  I say try because I don’t expect it to be very interesting.

Tomorrow at work there will be a ceremony …… I can’t say much about it except that it will be difficult for me.  I have spent so many years studying the power of positive thinking that is AA.  I have spent so many years searching for the good in the worst of us, and inevitably I find it, or at least acknowledge I know it is there somewhere.  Tomorrow I have to keep in mind that my job and my life are blessings way beyond what I deserve.  I have to remember to treat success as a call to do more for others.

Sometimes we took a slightly different tack.  Sure, we said to ourselves, the hen probably did come before the egg.  No doubt the universe had a “first cause” of some sort, the God of the Atom, maybe, hot and cold by turns.  But certainly there wasn’t any evidence of a God who knew or cared about human beings.  We liked A.A. all right, and were quick to say it had done miracles.  But we recoiled from meditation and prayer as obstinately as the scientist who refused to perform a certain experiment lest it prove his pet theory wrong.

I don’t feel a desire to revisit and rehash my experiences with coming around to believing in a higher power or to praying as a habit as I experienced it “when I first got sober” and through my early, drinking, relapsing years in AA.  I’ve written about it elsewhere and it was actually a generation or more ago.  It has something to do with the way I am today, but not much.

Now, in the present, I struggle with trying to figure out how much we influence God or God influences us.  I write “struggle,” but really it doesn’t consume much of my mental energy, just a little.  I understand that I will not know.  I understand that all people to a degree wonder about this.  For me today, prayer is primarily something I do for myself, for me to exert influence over myself.

I can understand the concept and theory that a higher power created all, then stepped back.  I can also understand the concept and theory that all is pre-ordained, with human actions meaning nothing.  I can mentally grant that one or both or neither of those is true.  Regardless, I won’t recoil from meditation and prayer because I believe those things influence my mind, if not the mind of God.

And in the picture, Xandra is wearing a gentle leader head collar.  It allows her some (too much, but still) freedom while mostly enabling us to stay in control of her.  She does not understand the dangers of suburbia and, were she given free rein, she would quickly get hurt beyond repair.

METAPHOR!

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

The way I learned and studied the prayer at first in AA has the word channel where here it is instrument. As a channel, I could sometimes picture it as something coming from the sky (where God lives, right?) into and out of me.  Instrument seems more active somehow, although instruments do nothing but lay there unless they are used or played.

I’m thinking of a specific situation because mornings at work are often my most unserene time of the day.  Short staff is the hardest thing for me to be peaceful about work.  It’s pretty predictable, for many reasons, that short staff will happen often.  I’d like to deal with it better than I do.  I know my anxiety and anger can effect other people and most of the people involved in the short staff situation are innocent.

So to understand the people who don’t come to work when they should?  To understand the people who try to get the best situation for themselves, regardless of others?  To understand the society that doesn’t sufficiently pay for services for people with disabilities, so that there isn’t enough money to provide enough staff, and there isn’t enough money to pay good people well enough to keep them coming back?

This situation challenges my abilities to create the best situation that I can create.  Keeping all the needs and all the personalities in mind is difficult, and in the end most people are unhappy with the result.  Some people suffer with the result.

Maybe I need a different prayer for this.

God, help me to endure my blessings.

I have been attending AA meetings for over 30 years and I have heard the promises too many times to count.  And I did skip over these two, as I’ve been trying to write and comment on them from memory:

That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

I wonder from time to time if the folks who can quote the books accurately and with page numbers set out to memorize that, or if I’m just slow with the process of osmosis.

I have a few thoughts.  I don’t think there’s been a time in my life when I’ve felt consistently useless and I’m not much for self pity.  In my darkest hours I’m aware I am privileged and blessed.

When my kids were young, I was certainly very useful, but I did call them into being on purpose, so it was only right that I care for them.  Since they were young I’ve been working in the field of  intellectual and developmental disabilities, aka mental retardation, and it’s difficult to be useless there.

I drove a client from my program to another he will be attending soon.  His mother is terminally ill, and she has kept him home with her as long as she is able.  He has three brothers who love him and are involved in his life, but they do not want him to live with them.  He got a placement in a community residence that is too far from my program for him to attend.  He’s moved, and now he will transition to the new day program.

I seldom take folks out of our building and it was unusual for me to be driving one on one.  I sat him in the front seat next to me because the back is full of dog hair.  It may seem like a no-brainer as to where he should sit, and like any adult passenger in my car he should sit next to me, up front.

But I know the back is safer in a crash.  And I know how precious this man is to his family.  And I know how much trust they’ve put in me and it humbles me.  And really, the front of my car is not all that dangerous.  I haven’t yet had an accident.

Today I read in Dave Hingsburger’s blog about the trust people put in us.  Every day at work I am useful.  I know I’ve said to people in the past that it’s nice, at work, to know if they Lord should come for me right then, he’d find me doing something worthy.  It’s less certain for me now, that I’m more away from the actual care of the people, but I have a chance to do even more good, and I hope I’m up to it.

I read the blog of a young man who has under two years sober, and he’s often quite miserable.  I can’t help but think that part of it is that he spends too much time thinking about how he’s feeling.  I’ve never known anyone to do that who ended up healthy and joyful about it.

Today in honor of my supposed promotion at work, my new name on my new credit card, and to thank the kids for helping with Carole’s surprise party, she and I took them to a restaurant for brunch.  It was a little more expensive and interesting than we usually choose, and it was good.  Last week, my work partner and I heard from our boss that our pay raise and bonus did not make it in time for this pay period, but would retroactively be awarded two weeks from now.  We’ll see.

Yesterday, Carole took Nicholas, at his request, to a thrift shop to buy clothes.  He said he’d rather get lots of used clothes than a few new clothes for the money, although one day hopefully soon he would be able to afford nice clothes.  Nicholas is a senior at a very prestigious university, and I think he’s going straight for his Master’s, which will entail borrowing tons more money.  I can’t believe he’s made it this far this well.

Erika came to the house and I drove to the restaurant and back with her.  She’s been graduated and working for just over a year, and she’s begun the process to go to grad school next fall.  She moved out last Christmas, and shortly,after that, she got a cat.  When I told an old AA friend about that she said, “Of course she did, she’s her mother’s daughter.”  The picture is of Erika’s second cat, acquired to keep the first company, on a recent visit to my house.  The cat made himself quite comfy, and Xandra was very intrigued.  We are so so so so lucky that the big black dog does not eat the little cats.  Lucky.  There was no skill involved in this situation.

So when I talked to Erika she was saying how she agrees with me a lot about football.  I hate it, and she’s not at all fond of it.  Also, with election day next week, she shares my politics.  That just floors me.  Nicholas and the used clothes (something I urged on the kids since they have been grown, at least), Erika and the sports and the politics.  Maybe all that lecturing I did had some effect.  Maybe!

As much as I know I must pause here and enjoy this time, I also know it will not last.  The woman who spoke at my meeting last is about to have baby, with 17 months sober.  I told her I had 16 months when Erika was born, and all the moments of sobriety I had to live through to make it to this day were much more than worth it.

Many of us had strong logic, too, which “proved” there was no God whatever.  What about all the accidents, sickness, cruelty, and injustice in the world?  What about all those unhappy lives which were the direct result of unfortunate birth and uncontrollable circumstances?  Surely there could be no justice in this scheme of things, and therefore no God at all.

I was at a meeting last night, and the topic was “Life on Life’s Terms.”  Several people expressed the sentiment that “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”

I don’t believe it.  I don’t see it.  I take the evidence of crazy, broken, starving, suicidal, abused neglected, suffering people in this world as proof that people do indeed get more than they, or any human, can handle.

I don’t know what this text is going to go on to say about it.  I think that ultimately the program of AA says that we are all human, and the human condition is one of frailty.  When horrible, awful things occur, it is our acceptance of the awfulness of the world that will enable us to go on.  Maybe some of us drank because we couldn’t accept that awful things happen to good people.  That “God” (or the universe?  fate?  karma?) gives us more than we can handle.  At times.

Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.

13

No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.

12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful, for you, too, may fall into the same sin.

13 But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.

These, I believe, are where the saying “God won’t give you more than you can handle” comes from.  “The way out,” to me, has been and continues to be the program of AA, including the texts and the people.  Without the program I may certainly have gotten “more” than I could handle.  So it is, I think, with unfortunate alcoholics who can’t benefit from the program.

Last night, someone said that out of every tragedy she has suffered, something good has come.  I do believe that at least that is possible.  If nothing else, I gain the ability to keep someone company in their misery if I go through something terrible, and maybe much more.

But she went on to say that what she has experienced and lived through and benefited from proves to her that she can handle whatever the future holds.  Again, I don’t believe it.  I see people, most especially old people, decrease in their ability to handle what life brings, even in the program.  I don’t think aging is particularly kind to anyone, and seeing what’s ahead frightens me to some degree.

The important point for me is that none of this makes me so frightened that I can’t continue, or so disheartened that I want to abandon the program.  Awful stuff can and does happen.  People are broken beyond repair.  That is not my reality today.  A number one tenant  of the program is that all I have is today.  Another bible verse tells me not to borrow trouble from tomorrow.  The program tells me not to project.