Corking the Bottle

New Year's resolutions don't work. Those people take 365 days at a time. We alcoholics know resolutions have to be achieved one day at a time; even one minute at a time. That works better than 525,600 minutes at a time. Resolutions tend to go in one year and out the other. Stay sober tonight, my friends.

[First published June 10, 2018] Mark at A.A. today quoted someone he had heard sometime. "I can. He can. I think I'll let him." Huh? Look at the first three Steps. Step 1.   "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol -- that or lives had become unmanageable."      I can! Step 2.  "Came to believe a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."      He can! Step 3.   "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."      I think I'll let Him!

I went to a funeral this week. It was for a 49-year-old mother of seven, grandmother of eight that I know of. When her oldest five kids were little, I wanted to show them a different way of life. They may have had love from their mother, but not much else. I took them out to eat, to sports events, to the Science Center, to my house for sleep-overs.... I cared a lot about their futures and wanted to be a positive influence on their poverty-burdened lives. They are all in their 20s and 30s now. Two are in jail on drug charges. One is in the hospital. Two are MIA addicts. Only two of the seven kids were there. The fourth-oldest greeted me with a long, tight hug. He had made -- and has to pay -- all the funeral arrangements on his own. At least he was there. And I was there. And some of the grandkids were there. But the chapel was mostly empty. None of the deceased's six brothers and sisters were there. No nieces. No nephews. Few friends. The woman OD'd last week. So there ...

It's not what's under the tree but what's around it.

I just spent one of my best Christmases ever. Of course I spent it sober. I am approaching eight months, my best streak without slips or relapses. I went to Grove City, Pennsylvania, along with my wife, my older daughter, and my mother-in-law. We had a family lunch with all my family and all my wife's family. We had about 20 people. The only ones missing were my younger daughter and a sister, who both live out West. This was a long trek away from my worst Christmas ever, three years ago. We planned the same family get-together seven hours from Louisville. I was looking forward to it, but not to the long trip. I relaxed the night before with enough vodka to help me sleep, and a little more so I could be semi-conscious the next morning. I don't remember a lot. I got a phone call from my wife. She was on her way to Pennsylvania without me. She said she tried to wake me up but couldn't. So she and my daughter left without me. That meant all my family saw I was missing in ...

[First published June 10, 2018] "I never worry about being driven to drink. I just worry about being driven home." "I never drink gin before breakfast." "I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it."      -- W.C. Fields, 1880-1946 Laugh at your problems. Everybody else does.      -- Anonymous

[First published June 9, 2018] I just watched  Days of Wine and Roses  starring Jack Lemmon and Lee  Remick  (1962) It's a story of an alcoholic couple who loved each other and loved  their  daughter. It took Jack Lemmon (Joe) several tries to stay sober. Lee  Remick  (Kirsten) had a tougher time. In the end, Joe had to tell Kirsten they couldn't be together any more until she wanted and received help.  [ Joe offers to reconcile with Kirsten - but only if she quits drinking ]  "You remember how it really was? You and me and booze - a threesome. You and I were a couple of drunks on the sea of booze, and the boat sank. I got hold of something that kept me from going under, and I'm not going to let go of it. Not for you. Not for anyone. If you want to grab on, grab on. But there's just room for you and me - no threesome." The TV hostess said Jack Lemmon and Director Blake Edwards both drank heavily together during the filming, iro...

[First published June 7, 2018] As I understand Freud, he spent a lot of time discussing childhood, relationships with parents, and the Oedipus complex. My psychiatrist turned me onto a book he thought might be helpful. Boy, he was right! I am now reading it for a second time. It is full of good stuff to help me get to the real root of my hangups. It's about cognitive therapy, which says my relationship with my father isn't all that significant. The book is  The Feeling Good Handbook , by Dr. David D. Burns. It would be difficult to delve into many specifics because the theory is hard to explain in a few short blog posts. (Burns' book is two inches and 729 pages including the index.) Maybe a website on cognitive theory will pique your interest. O ne to try is  https://www.cognitivetherapynyc.com/What-Is-Cognitive-Therapy.aspx . That site describes cognitive theory this way: "Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a relatively short-term, focused psychotherapy for a wide r...

[First published June 4, 2018] I carry in my wallet at all times my six Defenses to fend off relapse temptations. Yours will be different than mine; you need to come up with what will help you. After I share my Defenses, I will then share a secret with you. 1. Do something else. Take a walk, go to a meeting, etc. 2. Read some self-help books, including but not limited to the Big Book. 3. Eat something spicy or sweet. 4. Call my sponsor or someone else who can help -- including my very own little sister. 5. Call my wife. 6. Start over with #1. Now for the secret I promised. Every time I relapse I ignore my six Defenses. I decided I wanted to drink and doggonit I don't want anything to stop me. After all, I can quit anytime, I will just drink a little at a time, I will only drink at night, I will only drink on weekends, blah blah blah. Write down your own defenses.  And then follow them!!!

I am going in for hand surgery today. I have what's called a trigger finger and carpal tunnel. I also have arthritis in my thumbs, but no surgery can help that. I will be anesthetized.  My hand will be heavily bandaged afterward, so I don't know if I will be able to blog for a while. They tell me I won't experience any pain after the surgery, so I  won't need any pain killers. No pain killers is good news for recovering alcoholics. Some drugs interact, and our brains may be easily addicted to to certain medications. I used to have a list of such drugs from my first out-patient treatment at JADAC here in Louisville, but I can't find it. So instead, here is some advice from Be Med Wise ( http://www.bemedwise.org/medication-safety/medication-interactions ): "Alcohol can cause moderate to serious, and in some cases even fatal, interactions with more than 150 medications, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism ( https://www.niaaa.ni...

Discovering character defects means coming face to face with the bad "us." Until I take action to admit my defects to God, myself, and another human being (Step 5) and then relegate ooops'es solely to the rearview mirror, I am stuck with staring down the ugly me. How to I refrain from beating myself up for what suddenly seems to be obvious flaws? A book I have read twice is  Awakening in Time  by Jacquelyn Small  (https://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Time-Journey-Codependence-Co-Creation/dp/0939344181/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544474202&sr=1-2&keywords=awakening+in+time ). She gets a bit heady for me with chakras and their respective glands and colors (whatever all that means), but I highlighted many parts of the book to refer to later. One such passage helps me accept myself, defects and all: "From the Higher Self's perspective, I do not judge my weaknesses and vulnerabilities as 'bad;' I simply note them for what they are -- with c...

What I try to control controls me. I once was a runner; not a jogger. What I did wasn't jogging. I ran . I gave it all I could. During 10-20-mile training runs, I did about 7:30 a mile. In marathons and shorter races, I was right around seven minutes. That's far from world-class time, but it was good enough for second place sometimes and for a top-three finish in my age group often. I loved to run, but it controlled me. For some time, I got up before dawn and ran five miles through town. Then I went home at lunchtime and, instead of eating, ran wind sprints. I was running three times a day. After a few marathons, I qualified and ran in the Boston Marathon. One Thanksgiving weekend, I ran a 50-mile race. After the 50-miler, I had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital due to dehydration. That day, running controlled me, not the other way around. By the time I reached middle age, my knee gave out and I needed surgery to remove cartilage. It still hurt. I tried a sport...

Step 9: "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." I struggled with this until my sponsor advised me to make my amends when doing so made sense, not necessarily on some preconceived occasion where bringing up past hurts would be awkward for all. So I made amends in my blog post here Thursday to any schoolmates I may have verbally bullied. I wrote on a high school group Facebook page: "I hope my blog post today (December 6) will begin to make amends to those in high school I put down or ignored. I am so sorry I wasn't nicer to all. You can see my apology at corkingthebottle.blogspot.com ." Beaver Falls, PA I was nervous about opening this can of worms. But I needn't have worried. Here are comments I received: Tremendous courage Dan. A great model to emulate. Risks bring joyful rewards! We all have a past. You express great maturity and maturity by others will be seen in their grace and ...

[First published May 30, 2018] All the world's a stage, according to Shakespeare. Oscar Wilde said it more accurately with, "The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast." I have a leading role, I'm afraid. And as an alcoholic, I find the world's actually four stages. The stages of alcoholism are spelled out at  http://www.addictioncampuses.com/blog/the-4-stages-of-alcoholism-for-the-functioning-alcoholic/ . I will go through the stages and my experience in each. Stage 1:  Occasional alcohol abuse and binge drinking -- I drank once in a while. No problem, eh? I drank too much on weekends when I was home alone and my wife worked. If I had no place to go, I was fine drinking and sleeping my way through dull days. Stage 2:  Increased drinking as a coping mechanism -- After I was laid off from my job of 16 years, I filled my time tutoring, working for a consulting firm, and drinking in between. This was my depressed period. I denied to myself and thos...

[First published May 28, 2018] Beaver Falls (Pa.) Senior High School (now middle school) I am Facebook friends with many people I graduated high school with 45 years ago. Some of them I hung around with in school and out. But many of them I barely knew. Some I can't remember at all. But each one brings to the keyboard some kind of wisdom. They are parents and grandparents. Some have strong political views. Some have good jobs. Some, like me, are retired. All have contributed to society and other former classmates in some way. When I was in high school, I rarely and barely spoke to some of these "friends." If they weren't getting all A's and B's in the classroom, as I was, they wouldn't amount to much after graduation. Was I right or was I right? I figured they would end up working on a steel mill floor, waiting on customers at  Kaufman's, or dumping trash cans into a truck. Yes, I was  that  arrogant! I still had a touch of better-than-y...

[First published May 25, 2018] I don't believe in exorcising spirits, but I sure do believe in exercising spirits. No priest or holy water are required for the latter. A good pair of shoes and maybe some Gatorade and you are all set to exercise. Your spirit will soon be in good spirits. Working out is essential to the health of all, but an alcoholic needs workouts as much as an AA sponsor to feel well again. After I finish writing this post, I will go out and work in the yard. It's a far cry from my prime when I ran marathons and often 20-plus mile training runs. Bad knees, old age, and alcohol have all taken a toll on my physical well-being. Nevertheless, I can't allow myself to collect cobwebs in my easychair. So I walk. Or use my elliptical machine in the basement. Or cut grass and do other yard work. If going to the gym, riding a bike, or swimming are more your athletic cup of tea, go for it. Just do something to raise your heart rate for at least 30 minutes fou...

[First published May 23, 2018] I shared with my A.A. home group members today that I started this blog. I explained I felt I had heard God speak to me and tell me writing these posts would help me and help others. God's suggestion came as a bump in the night -- except it was daytime and I was sitting in the sunlight on the back porch. Nevertheless, trust me: It went bump. I pray. But more important, I have conversations with God throughout the day. Sometimes it's to express gratitude for something, sometimes is to ask for health and safety of loved ones.... Heck, sometimes it's even to ask for health and safety of strangers when they drive like maniacs. By speaking to God, I can hear His will for me. Sometimes. I ask daily for Him to let me know His will, then help me carry it out. That's what led me to start this blog. When I was a wee little lad, I had an invisible playmate named Loodie. It just occurred to me that maybe Loodie was really God. Hmmm. It's...

[First published May 21, 2018] "That's gratitude for ya!" I've heard that a lot and maybe said it myself at least once or 99 times. These days I am working on not expecting gratitude. If I go out of my way for someone, I do it out of love and caring, not recognition. The other side of this nickel is being sure to express  my  gratitude to others, even for the little things. When someone lets me out into the traffic flow, I wave my gratitude. I was treated to lunch today, and I certainly thanked my host. If you read my first entry to this blog, you will see that I lost my gratitude to God. I expected Him to go easy on me. Styx sang, "I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high." That was me. I forgot it wasn't my brains or beauty that made my life so comfortable. It was God. I lost a lot from those days past, including my sobriety. Now I thank God for sun when it's sunny, rain when it's raining, and a day of sobriety when I don'...

[First published on May 20] I have been told and read since I was knee-high to a bourbon barrel that alcoholism is a disease. That's still my opinion and I'm sticking to it. But a book I am currently reading,  Scripts People Live   by by Claude Steiner, contains a different view (page 233). I will save you the wordy reasoning, but he writes that "real" diseases require micro-organism changes to some organ. No such bodily alterations cause mental illnesses and no drugs cure them, leaving afflictions like addictions as un-diseases. He goes on to claim, "At present no drug has proven effective to cure depression, madness, or drug abuse ... since these tragic scripts are not the result of chemical or micro-organismic changes in the body but the result of the scripted interactions between people.... Thus, alcoholism is not an illness." Not so fast, Claude. The Big Book disagrees. So do  Staying Sober  authors Terrence T. Gorski and Merlene Miller (page...