Friday, September 01, 2006
Senior Senility Prayer
Grant me the senility to forget the people I
never liked, the good fortune to run into
the ones I do and the eyesight to know the
difference.
never liked, the good fortune to run into
the ones I do and the eyesight to know the
difference.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
HOLIDAY BLUES: Your Option
So, we did the world this big favor, stopped using alcohol and other drugs, holiday time is coming up, and twin dreads begin camping out in our guts. Holiday time is still using time for much of the human race, and those temptations will be all around us. In fact, that was how we used to spend holidays. Now there are more important priorities—at least, they seem more important right now: staying clean, recovery. The closer we move to that second dread, though, the priorities might change. The second dread is being alone, lonely.
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
By the time we get a taste of recovery, many of us have used up friends, family, and even acquaintances. Most of our new friends in the program walked the same nightmare we did and never learned how to make real friends or become a real member of a family either. Smack in the middle of holiday joy and festivities and are we going to sit there alone, no drugs, no friends, no family, no fun, nothing to do but wallow in how much things suck and that things shouldn’t have turned out the way they did?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
No one had a choice in getting the disease, but everyone in recovery has a choice about what he or she will do with it. Here’s the choice: (a) Sit on the pity pot and risk using, or (b) Make plans.
What plans? In rebuilding your life, the first relationship you need to repair is between you and your HP. The next relationship is the one between you and yourself. Ask your HP about plans. Pick meetings to go to, and maybe bring a little something for everyone. Visit your sponsor, take yourself to a movie, pick some programs to watch on TV, take a hike in the snow if you have any, buy some dye and tie-dye a tee-shirt red and green, decorate your place—home, apartment, rehab room, jail cell, cardboard box, whatever. You’re not a Christian? No matter. It’s a time to be happy, to show others how much you care for them, to wish the best for everyone we know, which includes ourselves.
** *** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** ***
Happy, joyous, and free. That’s the promise of the program, and the holiday season is just as good a time to begin as any. Better, actually. Most folks feel obliged to cooperate.
Misery is optional. Choose happiness. Who knows? You might learn how to be happy the rest of the year.
Happy, joyous, and free. That’s the promise of the program, and the holiday season is just as good a time to begin as any. Better, actually. Most folks feel obliged to cooperate.
Misery is optional. Choose happiness. Who knows? You might learn how to be happy the rest of the year.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Revenge or Justice
“If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.” —George Carlin
At this holiday season, with the ideals of freedom, peace on earth, and spiritual salvation filling the air, the recovering addict’s thoughts naturally turn toward revenge. We all know about the big setup: Get miserable enough and you’ll go back to the potions and powders. Resentment is a great misery producer but it pales next to the heaps of sorrow revenge can bring. Revenge is resentment put into action. It’s like putting hell into powder form and snorting it.
“But terrible things were done to me! Justice demands that I get some of mine back.”
—Oops. That “justice” word came up as though it was interchangeable with the word “revenge.” You can poke around through dictionary definitions to try and find the difference between the two, but there isn’t anything there you can’t bend to fit whatever it is you want to do. Still, “justice” is good and “revenge” is bad. Why? I ran across a quotation that cleared it up for me:
“An act of justice closes the book on a misdeed; an act of vengeance writes one of its own.” —Marilyn vos Savant
So, after you’ve done what you can regarding your injury through the law, therapy, and modification of relationships, what do you do with the rest of this mountain of anger and pain? You do what you need to do to let go: Sponsor, meeting, steps, HP, and a thing called forgiveness. Remember: forgiveness is not letting someone else off the hook. Forgiveness is putting down the weight of resentment.
At this holiday season, with the ideals of freedom, peace on earth, and spiritual salvation filling the air, the recovering addict’s thoughts naturally turn toward revenge. We all know about the big setup: Get miserable enough and you’ll go back to the potions and powders. Resentment is a great misery producer but it pales next to the heaps of sorrow revenge can bring. Revenge is resentment put into action. It’s like putting hell into powder form and snorting it.
“But terrible things were done to me! Justice demands that I get some of mine back.”
—Oops. That “justice” word came up as though it was interchangeable with the word “revenge.” You can poke around through dictionary definitions to try and find the difference between the two, but there isn’t anything there you can’t bend to fit whatever it is you want to do. Still, “justice” is good and “revenge” is bad. Why? I ran across a quotation that cleared it up for me:
“An act of justice closes the book on a misdeed; an act of vengeance writes one of its own.” —Marilyn vos Savant
So, after you’ve done what you can regarding your injury through the law, therapy, and modification of relationships, what do you do with the rest of this mountain of anger and pain? You do what you need to do to let go: Sponsor, meeting, steps, HP, and a thing called forgiveness. Remember: forgiveness is not letting someone else off the hook. Forgiveness is putting down the weight of resentment.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
The Return of Life Sucks!!! Resentments ----
Hello again, and I apologize for how long it's taken me to get up a posting. What I've been doing is exploring the underside of recovery from several surgeries (Back, Knee, Heart, Heart Again, and Heart One More Effing Time!) along with infection, physical therapy, and trying to sort out the medications that actually help me from those that make me feel like crap and those that promise to send me back down into that special little hell of addiction. I don't want to jinx it, but right now I feel terrific. I even plan on skiing this year, and Dopes On Slopes, NA ski weekend, is at Sunday River, Maine January 27-29 2006. If you ride snow and show, look me up.
Today's thought is on resentment, a matter upon which I've had much experience the past couple of years:
It seems a recovering addict named Ralph developed a resentment at a particular NA meeting and stormed out of the meeting into the night. After a few days his fellow group members wondered what had happened to him. It was almost as though he had disappeared. They hired a private investigator to track him down, and in a few weeks they had the PI's report.
It turned out Ralph had left the meeting, went to the marina, got in his sailboat, and headed out to sea. It had taken some time, but the PI managed to locate the uninhabited desert island upon which Ralph had been stranded. The investigator couldn't bring Ralph back himself, but he gave the group instructions on how to reach the island. The group rented a boat and made sail, hoping that this experience had gotten through to Ralph about his resentments.
When they reached the island they found that not only was Ralph still alive, he had built a fine house to live in. With pride Ralph showed them the house's root cellar, porch, and garden. There was another structure they could see from Ralph's window and they asked him what it was."
"That's a church I built. I go to my NA meeting there."
Several of the members frowned, wondering how Ralph could have a meeting by himself, when one of the group looked out of another window and saw another structure. "What's that?" he asked Ralph.
Ralph scowled angrily and answered, "Oh, that's the meeting I used to go to."
*****
Remember, resenting someone is like taking a hammer, hitting yourself in the head, and saying, "Take that, you bastard!"
Today's thought is on resentment, a matter upon which I've had much experience the past couple of years:
It seems a recovering addict named Ralph developed a resentment at a particular NA meeting and stormed out of the meeting into the night. After a few days his fellow group members wondered what had happened to him. It was almost as though he had disappeared. They hired a private investigator to track him down, and in a few weeks they had the PI's report.
It turned out Ralph had left the meeting, went to the marina, got in his sailboat, and headed out to sea. It had taken some time, but the PI managed to locate the uninhabited desert island upon which Ralph had been stranded. The investigator couldn't bring Ralph back himself, but he gave the group instructions on how to reach the island. The group rented a boat and made sail, hoping that this experience had gotten through to Ralph about his resentments.
When they reached the island they found that not only was Ralph still alive, he had built a fine house to live in. With pride Ralph showed them the house's root cellar, porch, and garden. There was another structure they could see from Ralph's window and they asked him what it was."
"That's a church I built. I go to my NA meeting there."
Several of the members frowned, wondering how Ralph could have a meeting by himself, when one of the group looked out of another window and saw another structure. "What's that?" he asked Ralph.
Ralph scowled angrily and answered, "Oh, that's the meeting I used to go to."
*****
Remember, resenting someone is like taking a hammer, hitting yourself in the head, and saying, "Take that, you bastard!"
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Decision Time, Folks
I have looked and looked, but no matter where or when I look I cannot find more than twenty-four hours in a day. When one finds oneself with thirty hours of stuff to do per day and only a twenty-four hour day in which to do it, something's gotta go. Thanks to my open heart surgery, which led to another surgery, which resulted in an infection, etc., etc., much time is being burned in the rest, recovery, and rehabilitation processes. There is that other thing from which I need to continue my recovery, which also takes time. On top of those are the third mystery in the Torio series I'm in the midst of researching and writing, and there are those taking my online writing course, The Write Stuff, who are beginning to wonder where part four is.
On top of all of that, there is this blog. If there are those of you who would like to see this feature continue, you must let me know. Put in a comment or Email me. If there are enough of you getting something beneficial from this blog, then something else will have to go. If, however, I am pretty much doing this for my own amusement, then it is history. Act soon. Decision time is nigh.
Barry B. Longyear
Email
On top of all of that, there is this blog. If there are those of you who would like to see this feature continue, you must let me know. Put in a comment or Email me. If there are enough of you getting something beneficial from this blog, then something else will have to go. If, however, I am pretty much doing this for my own amusement, then it is history. Act soon. Decision time is nigh.
Barry B. Longyear
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
The Recovery House Rules
Perhaps memory has grown dim with age, but I seem to recall a time when persons could disagree with each other without being believed to be and labeled "traitors," "morons," "extremist nuts," or "evil." Perhaps it was another age, perhaps I don't remember clearly, perhaps I simply hung out with a more tolerant crowd. In any event, it seemed that way. Politics, religion, whatever—so-and-so believed what he believed, and Whatshisface believed what he believed. Sometimes it led to spirited arguments, sometimes it led to fights and long, grumpy periods of silence. On rare occasion, it even led to enlightenment. In the end, however, family and friendship usually won out over opinion and the need to win..
Now, however, if you root for that team, worship God by that name, insist on voting for that candidate, or voting for that proposition, you are—at the very least—ignorant, ill informed, confused, and influenced by the dark side. At the worst, however, you are stupid, evil, and may even be the Great Satan himself! This all leaves little room for later kissing and making up.
So, what does all this have to do with recovery?
Among those in Twelve Step programs, there are, at times, disagreements about how things ought to be done. These things include service work, the conduct of meetings, working the Twelve Steps, sponsorship, complying with the Traditions, and other matters ranging from the trivial to the significant. There are tools provided by the program for handling these disagreements, the main tool being the first part of the Second Tradition: "For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—A loving god as he may express himself in our group conscience." In other words, if there is a disagreement, we vote on it. This works really great as long as we all agree to abide by the group conscience. For some, however, the Second Tradition is sacred as long as the decisions go their way. When the group conscience goes against what they want, however, it is obviously wrong and must be countermanded through other means.
One of these "other means," is to employ the same attitudes used in the world of disagreement outside the program. In other words, if the group conscience goes against what I want, then those voting "the wrong way" are obviously "evil, non-program, brainless, sick, and harbingers of the total destruction of the universe of recovery." This frequently is all the permission some folks need to employ means outside the Second Tradition to correct the error. Over the past couple of decades, I have seen many examples: Purposefully disrupting meetings disapproved of by the disruptors, character assassination, organized gossip, and "missionaries" who show up regularly at meetings to lecture the members at the meeting on how they ought to be running their meetings and their individual programs.
The results of all of this enthusiasm: Shut down meetings, disintegrating service structures, and old-timers and newcomers alike chased away from the meetings.
Here are some things I was told when I was brand new in recovery:
· It's an individual program. From everything you hear and witness in and outside the meetings, you have to piece together what's going to work for you.
· The First Tradition says that our personal recovery depends upon program unity—not uniformity.
· The sickest person in the room is the one who is focused on someone else's program.
· Addiction is slavery. Recovery is freedom—not exchanging one slave master for another.
· When you sit down, shut up, and listen, don't forget to shut up and listen.
Old-timer or newcomer, don't let control freaks and other well-meaning assholes chase you away from the meetings. Trust the Traditions. Call a business meeting, have a group conscience, vote on it, abide by the results, and everything will work out just the way it's supposed to.
Barry B. Longyear
You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. —Doug Floyd
Monday, October 18, 2004
Recovery or What?
"Man, I want to get clean, but what you people call recovery is just a bunch of losers sitting in a circle tossing platitudes at each other."
In different words, and in those same words, we've heard it countless times: I need a different way to live, but not that way. I mean, can you see me sitting in a meeting and . . . "sharing" my little story with a bunch of burnouts? And how many of these sessions would I have to attend? They're talking about ninety meetings in ninety days! I have a life. I can't fritter it away going to meetings. Besides, what if the people I work with find out about me going? It could affect my career.
So. What's your alternative? If you don't pick up, and if you do go to meetings (NA, AA, etc.) you're going to get and stay clean. There are countless gifts you'll receive upon cleaning up, but getting clean is the recovery thing. If you look for that easier softer way, though, such as moving from counselor to shrink, acupuncture to aroma therapy, while at the same time collecting prescriptions and continuing to bounce from one chemical to another, the one thing you won't be is clean. No clean, no recovery. Sorry. I don't make the rules, reality does. I am simply your humble reporter.
Well, what about all those moth-eaten slogans, old jokes, and boring drugalogs?
Hey, we appreciate well-done new material. Bring yours. By the way, there's another name for all those moth-eaten program slogans and old jokes: they're called "wisdom."
Barry B. Longyear
"When you have no one in your life who you can call and say, 'I'm scared,' then your life is uninteresting, unfulfilling, superficial. You need somebody you can trust enough to say, 'I need help.'" —Steven Soderbergh
In different words, and in those same words, we've heard it countless times: I need a different way to live, but not that way. I mean, can you see me sitting in a meeting and . . . "sharing" my little story with a bunch of burnouts? And how many of these sessions would I have to attend? They're talking about ninety meetings in ninety days! I have a life. I can't fritter it away going to meetings. Besides, what if the people I work with find out about me going? It could affect my career.
So. What's your alternative? If you don't pick up, and if you do go to meetings (NA, AA, etc.) you're going to get and stay clean. There are countless gifts you'll receive upon cleaning up, but getting clean is the recovery thing. If you look for that easier softer way, though, such as moving from counselor to shrink, acupuncture to aroma therapy, while at the same time collecting prescriptions and continuing to bounce from one chemical to another, the one thing you won't be is clean. No clean, no recovery. Sorry. I don't make the rules, reality does. I am simply your humble reporter.
Well, what about all those moth-eaten slogans, old jokes, and boring drugalogs?
Hey, we appreciate well-done new material. Bring yours. By the way, there's another name for all those moth-eaten program slogans and old jokes: they're called "wisdom."
Barry B. Longyear
"When you have no one in your life who you can call and say, 'I'm scared,' then your life is uninteresting, unfulfilling, superficial. You need somebody you can trust enough to say, 'I need help.'" —Steven Soderbergh
