Step 1 Honesty with Self and Others....About What?

Tonight I went to a literature meeting where we read and share on topical selections from As Bill Sees It. Someone volunteers a topic and then people are free to select readings from the Table of Contents listed for that topic. Tonight's topic was Honesty. While people we reading various readings and sharing their experience, I began browsing through all of the readings for Honesty, looking for a selection which talked about what I consider one of the most important paragraphs in the Big Book related to the topic of Honesty: the first paragraph of How It Works. It wasn't included anywhere in the readings on the topic of Honesty!

I was surprised to find that the editors of As Bill Sees It didn't seem to pull any of the three great Honesty lines from that paragraph. I did find one reading that did talk about the importance of honesty with ourselves, as well as honesty with others. So I voluteered to read that passage and then shared with the group "As Mike Sees It" -- and how the first paragraph of How It Works gives me great insight into how honesty played a critical role in my own moment of clarity, the morning when I woke up sober for the first time.

The first reference to honesty in that paragraph talks about how rarely we've seen folks fail in this process who have thoroughly followed these steps.... Those that do fail seem to be "constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves." Not honest with others. Honest with themselves. The second reference follows: "They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty." Here the scope of honest seems to extend to more than just ourselves, but also to our whole manner of living. This new manner of living seems to require some sort of high level honesty, to be sure. The third reference to honesty comes in the last sentence of the paragraph where it refers to those who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders: they too can recover "if they have the capacity to be honest."

All of the other readings tonight seemed to talk about honesty in the context of the 4th/5th steps and in the context of our relationships with others, both before and after we got sober. I don't have any particular issue with any of that, but given that I'm focusing on the 1st Step this month of January, I'm more attentive to how honesty played a key role in my getting sober and continues to play a key role in my staying sober.

For me, especially in the context of the first step, honesty is important almost entirely in terms of how I am willing and able to be honest about who I am as a human being who happens to be an alcoholic. My own moment of clarity involved my "waking up" to who and what I was: an alcoholic. A man who couldn't and can't "stop" drinking. On that particular morning, I thought the same thought I'd woken up to for almost a year: "I just can't stop drinking!". What was unique about that morning was that, unlike in prior experiences, the fact that I couldn't stop drinking was not a problem or something to be ashamed of.... It was just a biological fact. My body was different in terms of how it processed alcohol (and whatever form that might take...).

But I didn't lose the obsession to drink with this awareness of who I was. That didn't come until seconds later, I saw myself sitting in a circle of folks at the Kaiser "multi-family group" which met on Thursday nights and included about six kids who were trying to get clean and sober, as well as their parents and siblings. The morning I woke up sober, I saw myself sitting in that circle of people and when it came time to "check-in" (we parents would check in by saying, "Mike name is Mike. I'm here for my son, Pat. We did (or didn't, if Pat had a relapse that week...) have a sober household. And I do or don't have something to talk about." That's how I had been dishonestly checking in with those folks for the last ten months or so. Never did I tell the real, rigorous truth to them in that group, or anywhere else for that matter.

But that morning of October 20, 2001, I saw myself raising my hand in front of those imaginary people and say, "My name is Mike and I am an alcoholic." When I made that disclosure, even though it was to imaginary people to be sure, I had a clear and dramatic removal of the obsession to drink. An obsession that had been with me since my first drink almost 30 years prior.

I was free. And this freedom from the obsession to drink came about, I believe with all my heart, because I was finally honest with myself and with others about who I am as an alcoholic. I am convinced that this freedom has remained constant, in large part, because I've developed a new way of living which includes the critical component of being honest about that reality on a daily basis.

I was on my way....

Take care!

Mike L.

AA Didn't Teach Me How To Stop Drinking---It Taught Me How to Stop Stopping!

Anytime I hear another recovering alcoholic say something to the effect that they "stopped drinking" when they got sober, I cringe inside. Why? Well, it's because for 30 years or so, I defined an alcoholic as someone who couldn't stop drinking. The definition has flesh and bones and I called him "Dad."

When I was in my early 20s and my dad was in his late 40s, I pleaded with him to stop drinking --- because if he didn't, it was my strong belief that he was going to lose custody of my youngest sister (she was 3 years old and my parents had just divorced; my dad had been granted custody of my two younger sisters). Among other things...

I'll never forget that he reacted to that request of mine as though I had demanded that he stopped breathing air. "How dare I" ask him to give up the one source of relief that he had in his life. He worked hard, cared for his two daughters, "didn't run around with loose women!" --- and the only thing that he had left to give him any sense of relief from the stress in his life was to drink "some". How dare I indeed.

Sure, he could stop... He just didn't need to stop. I remember well that he could routinely make a point to stop drinking "for Lent" every year. He would also sometimes go on a "diet" and restrict his drinking to Miller Lite!!! Lots of Miller Lite!!! Yes, he could stop. Stopping wasn't his (or my!) problem. Starting was.

So it makes me nervous when recovering alcoholics refer to their getting sober as "stopping." You see, whenever I "stopped" in order to prove to myself or to others that I certainly wasn't an alcoholic, I would stop. And then when I was stopped, I would always become convinced at some point that I had "really, really, really" stopped and then once I was fully convinced that I had in fact really really really stopped, then the inevitable idea would float to the surface of my brain: "Well, if I've stopped, then I must not be an alcoholic! Alcoholics can't stop!"

For any of you who are struggling with this issue of "am I or am I not an alcoholic" --- trust me, if you're struggling with this issue and you're proving to yourself that you're not an alcoholic by the fact that you "can" stop drinking. Great! Just remember though that when you get to the point of being really convinced that you're not an alcoholic AND (!!!) the first thing you are going to do now IS DRINK (!!!) then, my friend, you can rest assured, you've passed the ultimate test. You are, sorry to say, an alcoholic. Non-alcoholics celebrate their not being alcoholics by drinking water, soda or milk....if they are thirsty. Actually, truth be told, non-alcoholics don't celebrate not being alcoholics. You see, it's not an issue for them. Period.

What happened for me (although I wasn't really aware of this after several years of sobriety) that morning that I woke up after my last drink (to date), is that I didn't stop drinking. No. Quite the opposite.

What I did was wake up and realize that "I can't stop drinking!". The same thought, to be sure, that I had been having for over 10 months. But this morning, it was different. This thought was followed by another: "This inability to stop drinking....is called 'alcoholism'."

And that thought was immediately followed by another, "And this alcoholism is just a disease that I happen to have, and that's perfectly all right!" Ahhhh. Everything I had done to that point in my life now made perfect sense. All the shame and guilt for doing all that I had done, especially my not stopping drinking when my son began his own recovery, all made perfect sense to me. The last thought that morning was that all was not hopeless. I could do what Pat had been doing and I was going to be o.k. --- I could go into those meetings that he had been going into for over ten months and I could get better, one day at a time, just like he had been getting better.

So what happened with me beginning the morning of October 20, 2001 is I began accepting the truth about my drinking: I can't stop drinking. That's intentionally phrased in the "past tense" by me because I still perceive myself as someone who can't stop drinking.

You see, I found freedom from that "self constructed prison" by accepting that truth about Me and sifting my attention to a new thought: while I can't stop drinking, I can stay sober one day at a time. I can't do it for a longer period than that, but I can stay sober today. Tomorrow? Well, as Dr. Paul (author of the "Acceptance is the Answer" story in the Big Book) once said, "If things just become unbearable some day and you just have to drink to deal with all the pain and stress, as a last resort, give yourself permission to drink....tomorrow." AA only asks that you try your best not to drink "today."

AA has no official position on drinking tomorrow. We've drawn the line at "just for today." As a result, he told folks who found themselves in these "worst case scenarios" to go ahead and give themselves permission to drink.... tomorrow.

His only caveat was that when "tomorrow" came and in the unlikely event that they still wanted to drink (he said that most people woke up either forgetting that they'd made this agreement to drink or woke up forgetting why it was that things were all that bad that a drink was going to make it better...), that he only encouraged them to ask one last question before actually taking the drink and that question is, of course, "What day is it?" If it's "today" ---- well, you know the AA story.

A couple of years ago, I heard an AA chair say that he came into AA with the barest of hopes that AA would teach him how to stop drinking. That morning, he told us that after many years of recovery, he was just now realizing that AA taught him no such thing. Instead, they taught him how to stop stopping.

That hit me like a brick. It was my experience too!

Take care!

Mike L.

Powerlessness Is Not a Problem, Now or Then

The 6 year anniversary of Dr. Earle's death (1/13/2003) was last week and I've been thinking about him even more than usual.... One of the things Earle told me when I was early in sobriety was that all of the Twelve Steps could be condensed or summarized into one single word: Powerlessness. While the word powerless is clearly contained within the 1st Step, he felt that it was not a temporary or limited state of being and as a result, he found it important to remember this state of powerlessness in each of the remaining 11 steps. He said all this to me during a Thursday night meeting at the Lafayette Hut and he then began reciting the remaining 11 Steps and he prefaced each step with the phrase, "Out of our powerlessness...."

Step 2: Out of our powerlessness, we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity....

Step 3: Out of our powerlessness, we made a decision to turn our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him....

etc. (FYI: I've found it very helpful and powerful to recite the Twelve Steps in this modified format!)

Between now and then, I've been struck at how many recovering alcoholics seem to portray "powerlessness" as a problem that needs to be overcome or solved. In the Big Book, when it says, "Lack of power! That was our dilemma. We needed to find a power greater than ourselves by which to live and that power had to be greater than ourselves. Obviously.

To be honest, the truth of that has never been 'obvious' to me. Seems like most people translate that claim to read, "Lack of power! That was our Problem. And to solve that problem, we needed to find a power greater than ourselves by which to live and that power had to be greater than ourselves." Personally, I don't see powerlessness as a problem or as something "wrong."

When I say that I am powerless over alcohol, I no longer look at this in terms of what I can't "do". I see it more in terms of who I am. My body is different from non-alcoholics not in terms of what I can't do, but in terms of how it processes alcohol and other mind-altering drugs. That physical condition is not something I have any power over. It's just the way I am. Although I've only been sober a little over 7 years, I've had this physical condition for many years.

Is that a problem? Not really. The "condition" isn't really the problem. My problem was that I was trying to figure out a way whereby I could "act" as though I didn't have this condition. That is, I tried to act "non-alcoholically" when I drank.

I thought that I was quite successful at this for many years, but I always experienced "incidents" where I failed miserably: I would start drinking just like every other time, but I would reach that Perfect Moment when all the stars in the universe aligned with me....and then I would forget to stop drinking. Next thing I would know, I'd wake up, sick and having vomited all over myself, not remembering what I'd done or said (no problem: my wife would remember!) and feel all sorts of guilt and shame for having done exactly what I didn't want to do. These incidents started off rather sporadic and gradual....but over the years, they seemed to increase in frequency and severity. As it says in "More About Alcoholism": I was in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period of time, it got worse.

What I'm trying to say though that my problem wasn't with these "incidents" --- my problem was that I was drinking and my body was alcoholic. When I woke up the morning of October 21, 2001 and realized for the first time ever that my inability to stop drinking was simply a disease called "alcoholism" and that I just happened to have that disease....then I was free. The solution to this problem (trying not to be who I was trying to be: a drinking non-alcoholic...) was to accept who I really was: a recovering alcoholic.

The solution was not just "not-drinking" as that would have just postponed the inevitable pain and suffering. The solution had to be a program of recovery and I found that in AA. My problem wasn't Powerlessness (if so, I'd still be screwed!). My problem was the ongoing attempts to ignore the fact of who I am as an alcoholic.

Suppose that's why I've never been all that motivated to develop definite belief/understanding of God.... It isn't really something I need to do, at least in terms of my recovery. Why create a solution for something that's not a problem?

Take care!

Mike L.

p.s. Note to Self: I need to write another blog on the topic of "God is Powerless Too! (and how that's not a problem for God either!)

If We Are Painstaking....

For me, the most important words of the so-called "AA Promises" are the first four: "If we are painstaking during this phase of our development...". Sometimes I think this "being painstaking" is prerequisite to the Promises and is either ignored or given too little weight by me. A deadly or critical error to be sure.

Painstaking is an unusual word, not often seen or heard elsewhere. One definition I found helpful is "The act of taking pains...". In the broad context of recovery, I take that to mean that to the extent I am able "to take" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.
Other ways of saying the same thing would be:

To the extent I am able to "embrace" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.

To the extent I am able to "accept" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.

To the extent I am able to "feel" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.

To the extent I am able to "acknowledge without judgment" the actual and inevitable pains in my life and my body, I can move through and beyond suffering.

"Taking" can be done so many different ways though and I'm not sure all of them have the same level of effectiveness in terms of dealing with pain and suffering. I doubt that a "begrudging acceptance" that one is an alcoholic will have the same effect as someone who "fully concedes to their innermost selves" that they are an alcoholic.

I think there's a difference between "pain" and "suffering". Pain seems to be more of the objective reality that we're experiencing. Suffering is more our subjective or personal response to that experience of pain. I can (and will!) experience pain. I may or may not experience suffering as a result of this particular experience of pain.

All this means a great deal to me in the context of my ongoing recovery from alcoholism. Before I got sober, pain was bad and to be avoided at all costs. Alcohol, among other things and techniques, was a means of escaping and/or avoiding pain. And for a long, long time: it worked wonderfully! And then, it didn't. In between the time when it worked and the time it didn't, alcohol never really worked. All it did was anesthetize: it prevented my mind from knowing that the body and soul was hurting. But the hurting or injury continued even though I wasn't "feeling" it.

Anesthesia is good in limited situations where the use of anesthesia permits a doctor to perform work that's necessary (even though it causes pain) and would be impossible if the patient was actually feeling the pain. But self-prescribed anethesia via alcohol/drugs is ultimately a disaster for those addicted to alcohol/drugs. The medicine (alcohol) both medicates the pain and causes the pain. In the beginning, alcohol causes a smaller percentage of the pain, while it medicates a much larger percentage of the pain. In the end, the alcohol is unable to medicate or relieve any of the pain. In the end, it's almost "pure" cause of the person's pain.

The process of learning the skill or tool of "painstaking" does not begin when someone starts working the 9th step and making their amends for past harms done others. It begins with the first step where we experience (yet another synonym for "take") the physical pains caused by "withdrawing" from the use of alcohol. It continues though the 2nd step where we begin looking beyond the pains of withdrawal and begin looking toward the possibility of life without alcohol by means of some thing ("higher power" if you like) other than pure willpower/effort. And through the 3rd step where we let go of our death grip on trying to be other than who we are (alcoholics). And through the 4th step where we began a self-inventory, without fear, judgment or condemnation (all of which cause needless pain). And through the 5th step where we share with our most trusted "others" (those being: ourselves, God as we understand God and another human being...) the exact nature of our wrongs (that is, that there's absolutely NOTHING wrong but our long standing attempts to not be who we really were!). And through the 6th step where we began loosening our grip on the mistaken idea that we were "bad people" and becoming more aware of the fact that we were and are "sick people trying to become weller". And through the 7th step where we asked for help letting go of all the (painful) false images of who we were/are. And through the 8th step where we, finally, began to list (to see...) the inevitable reality that all of our attempts to hide from who we were (alcoholics) hurt not only ourselves, but those around and about us: especially those close enough to love us, the real us.

So, by the time where we began the active process of mending the damages left in our wake, it was not the beginning of "painstaking." It's the culmination of a long and gentle process, begun at the beginning. And it's certainly not the end of the process.... The remaining three "maintenance" steps each keep the importance of painstaking "front and center" of our living life on life's terms.

Take care!

Mike L.

Limited Safety of and within Meetings

I recently had a powerful experience of how the AA meeting is not safe in all respects and all circumstances. In addition, this same experience taught me an important lesson about the power of storytelling and how it can be used both for good and for evil.

Two weeks ago, I attended a meeting wherein a man, in an obvious state of agitation and distress, disclosed to the people at this meeting that the night previous he had "snapped" and had "beaten the shit" out of his 8 year old daughter and his wife. He explained that he had not "punched" his daughter with a fist, but had spanked her --- hard. He even acted out the severity of his spanks. He didn't describe the form of beating that his wife suffered, but he did say that at the end he'd told his wife to go into her room and lock the door. He then left the house and spent the rest of the night driving around town.

When he reenacted the spanking he'd given his daughter, I knew immediately that he'd crossed a line between "disciplinary" and "abusive." What he was demonstrating was abuse, clear and simple.

Present in the meeting was a nurse with 20 years sobriety. There were also at least three women and one man who I know from their stories have each suffered various forms of physical and/or sexual abuse from men in their past.

I left the meeting and struggled for at least an hour with the ethical dilemma presented by what I'd experienced at that meeting. I felt a strong ethical mandate to report this information to the police and/or Child Protective Services: primarily because I believed that this man's daughter and wife were both in imminent danger of further abuse from this troubled man. At the same time, I felt some obligation to protect this man's annonymity and his right to privacy in terms of what he'd shared in the context of the meeting. In the end, after consulting with several other AA members and my wife (who had been responsible for the "Safe Enviroment" program in our local Catholic diocese for several years (the department responsible for ensuring that children in Catholic institutions were protected from such abuse, whether it be from priests or others) --- and I ended up convinced that I had an obligation to call the police. And I did.

The police did go to the man's home and question him about what happened, as well as interview his wife and then his daughter. I'm not sure exactly what was said to the man by the police and the only one talking about what supposedly happened is the man himself. His story is that the police agreed with him that what he'd done to his daughter was permissible disciplinary action. I'm not at all sure that's true, but that's the story he's spreading in and out of the meetings ever since as he is on a intense search for "the snitch in AA" who called the police on him. As I have been listening to him, I'm coming to realize that "story" can be used for both good and evil. Stories, even untruthful and deceitful ones, can be very powerful and effective.

I have no regrets or shame about what I've done. I'm troubled by the fact that it appears I may have been the only one who felt obligated to call the police. I'm troubled by the fact that those four people who had prior experiences of being abused may be thinking to themselves that this group is condoning what this man did to his daughter and wife and that by their silence they are supporting an abuser and ignoring two co-victims of abuse. I'm troubled by the fact that I've been silent to date as to what happened and what was the right thing to do --- because to do so would expose the fact that I was probably the one who called the police.

But is my "silence" buying into the myth of this guy's power as an abuser? I personally don't believe this guy would attempt to harm me should I disclose to him, either privately or in front of the group, that I called the police and why I did that. I believe that he's a good man who's battling cancer and in conjunction with that battle, is taking a variety of medications that are probably messing with his whole sense of well-being and sanity.

I'm now looking for a good "story" that will convey to the group and to this guy the limited safety we have in AA meetings, but more importantly, some sort of truth about acceptable and unacceptable ways of dealing with stress and anger. When I find it, I will tell it. AA meetings are safe primarily in the sense that anyone should be able to come in and share their struggle with alcohol/drugs and not be ashamed of who they are or what they have done in the context of that struggle. AA meetings are not a safe haven for people to disclose unlawful acts, nor are the statements made in AA meetings somehow privileged from disclosure to law enforcement or legal deposition. As one group warns with a plague in their meeting room: "Notice! What you say here can be used against you in a court of law." Not only that, AAer's are particularly bad about keeping things private. To pretend otherwise is stupid and dangerous. That's why we don't share our 5th step from the podium.

So, until I do come up with this story, I am privately approaching the four people who have histories of abuse in their lives and sharing with them what I have done and that I am there for them should they want to talk.

Take care!

Mike L.

Why We Laugh...

I got sober in the month of October, so I naturally came to see the month of November to be a special month where I focused on Resentment. Resentment primarily over people talking about Gratitude and that this was "the" Gratitude month! That used to just really bother me. I mean, Thanksgiving was not an AA holiday and it seemed inappropriate to the legalist and purest in me that we were infecting the rooms of AA with some outside celebration.

The focal point of my Rehashment of Resentment (the anti-matter of AA's Attitude of Gratitude) was the laughter that I began hearing in the rooms of AA from Day 1 until now. When I was first sober, the laughter caught me off guard. What was so funny about someone talking about something quite painful, shameful and/or downright scary? And why would people in these rooms typically react to these most painful of stories with very brief moments of quiet, followed by what appeared to be spontaneous, honest and sometimes uproarious laughter! What was that all about? I remember the first time I laughed, I immediately put my hand over my mouth because it seemed wrong to laugh at someone else's misery and pain. But I did laugh, almost from the get go.

I didn't think any of this was really all that funny. I had accepted the truth of my being alcoholic and that to live, I needed to focus not so much on stopping drinking as I needed to focus on staying sober. But staying sober didn't really seem that joyful or funny. It seemed quite serious and therefore, I needed to figure it out. It was the only thing I thought about. I was scared that I would drink again. I went to 10 to 14 meetings a week (and still do) and read everything I could get my hands on about AA, recovery and alcoholism...still do.

Now, seven years later, the topic of Gratitude does not bother me at all. When the topic does come up, I do like to share that for me, Gratitude was not a feeling, but an attitude. A decision made now and regardless; not an emotion following something good. Feelings terrified me all my life and alcohol was my primary tool in dealing with feelings, good or bad. But my sponsor taught me (and I slowly learned...) that feelings were neither good or bad. They just were what they were and I didn't need to be all that worried about them. They came. They went. But Gratitude wasn't a feeling. Grateful was a feeling; gratitude was more or a decision, a habit or an attitude.

Gratitude was something that had to be learned and practiced and developed. Some people made lists and wrote them down. I made lists of things I was grateful for in my head as I was driving to work (writing them down was clearly unsafe!) and as I did this more regularly, there would times where I'd become aware of some gift I'd received and I would be flooded with emotions of gratitude, joy and being loved. My eyes would tear up and I'd have to stop thinking of more things to be grateful for....I couldn't take any more. I was full, if not overflowing. The day I cried tears of joy over the fact that "I am and always will be an alcoholic" was one such overwhelming moment.

Now I have begun to understand the laughter in and around AA. It's not the laughter you hear at social gatherings where people are purposely telling funny stories or jokes, or, my personal favorite, making fun of someone else. No, the laughter heard in AA meetings or between two suffering alcoholics is a much different kind of laughter.

It's a laughter shared only by and with other survivors.

When we share a most pain-filled memory of our past within the context of an AA meeting or with another alcoholic, we share something that every single one of us can relate to and identify with. We often nod unconsioucly with deep understanding as we listen to another's story. Even if we've never been divorced, or arrested, or abused---we've been there. We know what that feels like because we've felt that same feeling, if not in the context being shared by the speaker, we've felt that same feeling in some other context. And we all had a common solution for such feelings and experiences: we looked outside ourselves and we looked at alcohol or some other substance that would take us out of that painful experience: fast! immediate! easy!

So, why do we laugh? We laugh, consciously or not, because we share a common past and a common disease: and we survived. By the fact that we're here telling our story of woe to another alcoholic, we know that we have both survived. Someone once said that "Religion is for those who fear going to Hell; spirituality is for those who've already been there." That spirituality is what I found and continue to find in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and with other suffering alcoholics, be they wet, dry or joyous, happy and free.

Take care!

Mike L.

Once Again: It's an Inside Job

Last night, I'd made a commitment to meet with a sponsee after work and before heading over there, I realized I'd really not let my wife know about this commitment I'd made. This issue of being considerate and communicative was more important this week: the last week or so has been rather difficult --- she's been in a particularly bad spot emotionally right now for a lot of reasons. That never bodes well for me. Anyway, a few nights ago she informed me that large part of the proposed solution to her problem was that I needed to change. I needed to change to solve her problem. God Love Her. ;-}

And part of the way I needed to change was to be more present and connected to her, spend more time with her, etc.

Anyway, I called her last night with the intention to be up front about wanting to go meet with a sponsee for a little while at the end of the day. Or course, I didn't realize until too late that this wasn't that honest because I'd already made my plan to meet with the sponsee before running it by her.... But that gets me ahead of my story. Her response was surprising in that it seemed quite positive: "Sure, I'm on my way home and I'll email you with a list of things we need from the store and you can pick those up for me after your meeting..." Sounded great to me! Maybe this "honesty" thing is something I should try more often.

Unfortunately, later that evening when I got home, there was a chill in the air and it didn't take long to discover that she really wasn't all that "fine" about my decision to meet with a sponsee earlier in the evening. Now I learned that when she was on the phone earlier, she'd felt hurt by my decision to meet with this stranger (her term for sponsees or anyone else in recovery...) but that she didn't feel she really had a choice to do or say anything other than pretend to be supportive of what I had already decided to do. That is, she pretended (quite well!) to be supportive even though she actually felt abandoned....once again by me. She'd been hurt.

I felt like the jackass that I am all too often and I tried as best I could to make amends. And we worked through that by the end of the night. Mostly.

The next morning, I got up early and for the first time in awhile, I got back to my normal morning routine of stretching exercises (face it: I'm old) and then 15 minutes or so of quiet meditation. Sitting and being attentive to my breathing in and breathing out. Then I went to an early 6:30 meeting at the Concord Fellowship. I walked in feeling quite content and proud of myself for getting back into my spiritual routine that morning, successful at compartmentalizing my wife issues, and went over to the counter to grab a cup of decaf and try to resist getting a donut before sitting down with friends before the meeting.

I poured a cup of coffee and then went to grab a packet of Equal from the basket of artificial sweeteners on the counter. I sorted through all the crappy Sweet 'n Lows which I hate, looking for the cherished but rare Equal packets that always seem always to be hiding in the bottom of the basket. The first packet I found turned out to already be opened and 1/4th full. Shit! How inconsiderate of someone to do that! The second packet I found turned out to be fully empty. Shit x 2! plus a Fuck!....I whispered to myself and this was overheard by two friends nearby. They took great glee in the fact that St. Mike was finding life on life's terms not quite so easy and even more glee in sharing that insight with me. While I laughed off their biting judgment, I left them to their new past time (making fun of Mike) and sat down at the "my" table.

Once there, a friend of mine with maybe two or three years asked me what was wrong...I seemed troubled. Rather than admit that I was troubled by two defective Equal packets (or more honestly, my difficulties with my wife), I pushed down my real feelings and upset and said that I'd been struggling with some work issues related to the worsening economy and the possibility that I was going to be asked to lay off one or more of my employees before year's end. He then shared with me 3 to 5 suggestions of how I should handle that unbeknownst to him "unreal" problem of mine. I tried to project 7 years worth of humility and openness to someone with less time than me (arrogant asshole that I was!), all the while wanting him to shut up and allow me to share with him the real problem facing the Concord Fellowship and all of AA: the audacity of some fucking alcoholic to open up a packet of Equal, take only 3/4s of the substance and then leave the remainder in the basket....only to be outdone by some other (or the same) fucking alcoholic leaving a completely empty packet of Equal in the basket instead of throwing it away in the trash can. Luckily for him and for me (and the Equal offending asshole who might be somewhere nearby...), the meeting started.

After the chair, the topic was Acceptance. The topic pleased me only because it wasn't Gratitude, topic du jour of many November AA meetings. I thought about sharing some bullshit story that I always share about when Acceptance is the topic, but I was too humble to raise my hand... What I really wanted to talk about, no "to instruct" about, was the unwritten but important ethics of AA and the proper disposal of trash which includes partially consumed and germ infested Equal packets. But, I refrained. Restraint of pen and tongue and all that. Made all the more difficult by my two supposed friends who kept asking me if "Love and Tolerance" was my code! Arrrgh!

I left the meeting when it was over without an explosion and began my 65 minute drive to work. Before getting too far, I knew that something was bothering me and I decided that it was time for me to do what I call my Acceptance Inventory (I've blogged about it previously...it involves asking a series of 50+ questions that I memorized from a book called The Tao of Sobriety...) and wouldn't you know it, I only had to recite the first inventory question to have my whole life turned upside down:

"1. Do you accept that ordinary people are often cruel, INCONSIDERATE, and heartless?"

99% of the time, my answer to this question would be "Sure!" and I'd then move on to the really more challenging questions like "Do you accept dying?" or the following question, "Do you REALLY accept dying?". But this morning, my honest and immediate answer to question #1 was: "Apparently not!"

I realized in short fashion that my early morning visceral reaction to the discovery of the two defective Equal packets gave clear and convincing evidence to the fact that I do not in fact accept that people are not what I want/expect them to be. Even though, in reality, ordinary people are often cruel, inconsiderate and heartless. My failure to accept that reality led to my emotional outburst before the meeting.

This morning, I never really got past that first question in the Acceptance Inventory. Instead, I accepted a guilty verdict and I laughed at my self.

Then I began to recollect all sorts of examples from my "his-story" where I displayed the same or equal level of inconsiderateness (e.g., using the last bit of toilet paper and not restocking the bathroom with a new roll, taking almost the last drop of milk out of the carton and leaving a meaningless drop for my wife, if I left any at all, etc.). And I laughed at my self again....

And then when those reminences down memory lane peetered out, I hooked on to the most meaningful truth of my own inconsiderateness when the day before I'd not honored my love and commitment to my wife of 27+ years and her needs and wants before I made plans to meet with my sponsee. THAT was inconsiderate, selfish and self-centered. THAT was ordinary old me.

I didn't laugh so hard that time. I needed to begin planning on demonstrating my love and my commitment toward my wife in such a way that respects my own needs to foster my recovery, but also puts into action my love for my wife. In addition to honesty, I needed to work on some basic acts of consideration and kindness.

Oh well. Progress....not perfection. I've got work to do. No better time than now.

Take care!

Mike L.