Corking the Bottle

When I got married, my ring was a symbol of my love; a circle, never-ending. But I lost it. The ring didn't fit me, so after a few years of not wearing it -- which was a symbol of something else -- I tried wearing it on my pinkie finger. Look, Dear. I'm wearing my ring again. See? I'm trying to make things work for us. Then a few years ago, I was drunk and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up. Later I was conscious. That's when I realized the ring had slipped off my finger. I looked under the couch cushions, but blacking out meant I really didn't know where I had lost the ring. I never said anything to Kathy about it. I don't know if she knew I had lost the symbol of our marriage and our love. Oh well. I felt like the love was lost anyway. The marriage wouldn't last much longer because I kept drinking. She already had seen a divorce attorney. Somehow, Kathy stuck with me. At last, 16 months ago, I stopped drinking with no relapse on the horizon still....

From Faces & Voices of Recovery discussion group: Austin W. Wynn  is at  Never Alone Recovery . August 25 at 5:23 PM  ·  Munster, IN If you know someone who's struggling, then reach out to someone who  can help them.... A ddiction is almost certain death. If you know something, be brave enough to say something. Odds are they can't help themselves.... I know I needed intervention from those who Loved me and held me dear. I needed someone to step in because I was far beyond my depth. I was so consumed by how much I've destroyed mine and everyone else's lives that I didn't consider myself worth saving. But my parents did. My sister did. My grandma and uncles and aunts did.... My family was willing to make the hard choice FOR me. Because of their courage, I have the privilege of experiencing the following: I started a family. I'm a homeowner. I run a business and employ other recovering addicts. I have a son that I can care for and love wit...

When it comes to drinking, some people never quit until abstinence comes to them in the grave. Yet God sends us all a healthy way out. He gives us a chance. Nevertheless, "... many are called but, few are chosen." (Matthew 22:14) Why are few chosen? What does that mean? M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled offers this explanation: "As is common with grace, most reject this gift and do not heed the message. They do this in a variety of ways, all of which represent an attempt to avoid the responsibility for their illness." God gave me chance after chance to give up drinking, but I always came up with an excuse to relapse. The A.A. Big Book, in a personal testimony on page 293, observes, "I didn't want to drink that day but I took no action to insure against it. You see, I believe that we get more than one 'moment of grace' from God -- but it is up to us to seize the moment by taking action." Dr. Peck wrote that some, including most...

When I am moved to speak at A.A. meetings, the words from my mouth aren't mine. I'm not that wise. Instead, I believe it is God speaking through me with a message He wants someone in the room to hear. Similarly, someone may say something that has me grabbing for my notebook to write down a poignant message God intended for me to hear. Mark, at my Thursday night meetings, says that if he ever hears God's voice speaking to him, lock him up. On the other hand, he believes God does speak to him through the words others at the meetings say. I write this blog in the belief that God leads me to deliver a message someone needs to read. I don't get many views each day. But if there is one, maybe God has chosen to speak to that person through me. God, may I do Your will! Another Mark told a story at A.A. this afternoon that illustrates the point I am trying to make. Years ago at a meeting, he tried to deliver a message, but got lost along the way. When he was finished, he f...

We've all done it. I'm not senile. I couldn't find my keys the other day. I looked throughout the house. I looked in the car. I was convinced someone must have taken them. Then I heard a jingling in my pocket. The keys were with me all along. We tend to look for God the same way. We think He is in church. We think He is in nature. We think he is in heaven or up in the clouds someplace. He is in all those places, for sure. But to find God, look no further than your own pocket. Discovering The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck ( http://www.mscottpeck.com/ ) was like discovering gold in the ditch behind my house. In this book is a wealth of knowledge about myself, my alcoholism, and God. For the God part of this wisdom, Dr. Peck tells us to turn inward to find God: "He is part of us. If you want to know the closest place to look for grace, it is within yourself.... What this suggests is that the interface between God and man is at least part of the interface ...

(Reprinted from my blog post August 10, 2018) I pray before A.A. meetings and group therapy sessions that God will help me receive relevant messages I need at the moment, and that I will be moved to share helpful words God wants someone in the room to hear and absorb. I have faith those prayers are answered. "The Bible tells us that when we plant seeds of faith in others' lives, we will have no idea how or when those seeds might actually take root and flourish. Your conversation today could lead to someone else's conversation tomorrow or next year." ( The Complete Idiot's Guide to Faith , by my high school buddy, Rev. Charles "Chuck" Moore,   https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Faith/dp/1592574947?SubscriptionId=AKIAJ2F6RDUSIYCWQMFQ&tag=sa-b2c-new-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1592574947 ) Case in point: A few weeks ago in my group discussion at Better Alternatives Counseling in Louisville, we g...

I see this TV commercial a lot: "Foundation problems don't get better with time. If you're experiencing cracks in brick, cracks in block, cracks in drywall, or cracks around doors or windows, call...." My foundation used to be cracked, and it didn't get any better with time. That is, until I found God, went to A.A. meetings, worked the Twelve Steps, and read the Big Book and other mental health/spirituality books. Now I have no cracks in my mortar. Well, I have a few. But overall, my foundation is stronger now. The reason for abusing alcohol and other substances is a weak foundation. Whatever you try won't work until you build a sturdy foundation. That takes work. That takes support from others. That means having a dependable contractor (sponsor). If you have cracks in your foundation (And who doesn't?) patch them. Start now. It takes time to identify them and then make needed repairs.

"Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the the very thing which makes life seem so worth while to us now. Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have -- the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them." --The Big Book, page 124 I am grateful for my dark past. No, I'm not masochistic. It's just that we learn more from our losses than from our victories. Fortunately, my dark past only goes back 10 years or so, not somewhere along life's road miles before I came to this rest stop. If I hadn't driven through the dark past, I never would have come to know myself and how to repair the damage I caused to myself and others. Only because I had bad times did I find God and pray for His will to be done through me. I see results of that prayer every day. Stanley Lake in Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains When I lived in Idaho, I came to realize those beaut...

Thank God for the power to stop drinking. No, really, literally: Thank God! I pulled together some passages today from two books that mean a lot to me: The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck ( http://www.mscottpeck.com/ ), and the Big Book by the pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous ( https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoholics-anonymous ). These quotes refer to the utmost ingredient essential to our growth and maturity, whether we are alcoholics or not. I refer to the deity many of us call God. I want to start with Dr. Peck: "In debating the wisdom of a proposed course of action [like quitting drinking], human beings routinely fail to obtain  God's side of the issue. They fail to consult or listen to the God within them, the knowledge of rightness which inherently resides within the minds of all mankind.... If we seriously listen to this 'God within us' -- we usually find ourselves being urged to take the more difficult path, the path of more effort rather than less...

Marti McLeod  shared a  post  in Faces & Voices of Recovery group discussion

"Life is difficult. This is a great truth.... "Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy." -- M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled ,  http://www.mscottpeck.com/ But life "is a series of problems." We each deal with life in our own way. Some of us turn to alcohol and drugs, which is what this blog is all about. Pain, I heard recently at an A.A. meeting, is necessary; suffering is optional. I chose to suffer after a series of unanticipated "tragedies" left me depressed. I had never had so much turn so rotten so quickly in my life and so had never experienced depression. The only fix that seemed to work was alcohol. Ironically, alcohol itself is a depressant. But if I drank enough, the earth stopped turning for a little while until I re...

Here is something that is confusing to me. "According to Carl Jung, at the very core of our humanness exists a dualism -- the shadow and the light. Before we can manifest our light and become that winged bird, we must first come to know and accept our shadow." (Jacqueline Small, Awakening in Time     https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jacquelyn-small/awakening-in-time/ ) I have worked to minimize and erase the personality disorders I have become aware of by working the Twelve Steps. One important defect is self-centeredness and a feeling of superiority. I feel like I have made good progress toward that goal. People at A.A. meetings show me we are all the same in God's eyes, but with unique strengths and weaknesses. That's the way God made us. My wife still accuses me of thinking only of myself. So does my youngest sister. So am I not seeing myself clearly for what I am? Are they trying to boost their own self-esteem by projecting their issues at me? Or...

Some of us, though, tripped over a very different snag. We clung to the claim that when drinking we never hurt anybody but ourselves. — TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 79 Step Eight tells us, "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all." I have my list. But I'm not sure I am ready to make amends. My mother is on the list. She is 87 years old and lives 430 miles away from me. I never drank in front of her or was drunk when with her. But there have been times my hands shook, I threw up, and was listless after a binge. How do I make amends to her? How can I bring up the subject? She knows I am an alcoholic. She knows I quit drinking, one day at a time. But I haven't figured put how to make amends except by staying away from alcohol. For some unknown reason, she loves me now as much as she ever did. I am grateful to God for that. Loving her in return means I must stay sober. Even when she is gone.

I wrote on August 2 about "Why Is This the Best of All Possible Worlds?" I said God tests us and uses horrific events to create something good. Well, maybe. I wrote then: "The question remains: Does everything happen "for the best in this best of all possible worlds?" My healing tells me it does. "So then what about wars and murders and rapes and cheating and lying and stealing and death and fires and hurricanes and earthquakes and.... The list goes on. I have come to believe that God uses bad stuff to make us better. Just as my alcoholism has made me a better person than I would be if I had never taken a drink, God leads us through such dark times." I stand by those words. But I came across a different point of view that also makes a lot of sense to me. From  Awakening in Time , by Jacquelyn Small ( https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jacquelyn-small/awakening-in-time/ ): "...positive thinking is not the solution to our dualistic ...

(Reprinted from my blog post July 31, 2018) The debate rages: Is alcoholism a matter of choice or is it a disease? Well, maybe not "rages." But the question does go "blip" in some circles. My cousin, in a phone text, referenced a blog post I wrote on May 20 about the disease question and she pointed me in the direction of a YouTube address by Dr. Kevin McCauley ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2emgrRoT2c ). It's well worth the investment of an hour, 12 minutes, and 13 seconds for an easy-to-follow analysis of addiction and our brains. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that controls conscious thought, behavior, decision making, and the like. Experiments with mice prove that's not where addiction attacks. The midbrain is the survival brain. It handles eating, killing (self protection), and sex. This is the part of the brain where alcohol and other drugs work, which means we are tricked into believing we need more and more for survival. Not...

Words of wisdom from A.A. today: Your mind can lie to you, Your heart can lie to you, But your gut never will lie to you.

I was watching an old episode of The Twilight Zone last night. "Old?" All the episodes are old now. Anyway, it was about an alcoholic who was about to lose his wife and son. He found a doctor on a matchbook cover and staggered in to see him late one night. The doctor talked to him about his drinking, then gave him a pill.That was all. It turned out the pill contained the larvae of a hellgramite, a worm that attaches to the stomach wall and grows when fed alcohol. The man had terrible abdominal pain. But in the end, he was sober and well and passed the matchbook cover to another drunk. There's a lot of symbolism there. The one I want to point out is that the pill that made drinking sick and painful is like the antabuse I take. I credit that drug for playing a big role in my ongoing recovery. If I drink I will become miserably sick. Antabuse is my hellgramite. You can see the entire episode at  https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-pty-pty_email&hsimp...

(Reprinted from my blog post July 29, 2018) I can't remember whether it was in high school or college when I stumbled through the pages of  Candide , an 18th century novel by Voltaire. I only remember this haunting sentence, repeated over and over when Candide confronts any horrific event: "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." That satirical refrain stuck with me, I guess, because I didn't know if I agreed with Candide's naivete or Voltaire's mockery of that philosophy. Take alcoholism, for example. The degradation of personality and health doesn't fit into a "best of all possible worlds." I felt embarrassed among friends and family and hated myself with a hatred I thought I could never forgive. Then I found God again. I believed I had found him every time before I relapsed, but the wicked voice inside me, tempting me, was stronger than God's. This current stretch of sobriety feels much different. For the first ...