Corking the Bottle

"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...

This is a must-see for all who are battling the disease known as alcoholism. It's a speech by Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He describes his own battle against the bottle, his first meeting with Dr. Bob Smith, writing The Big Book, and the beginning of A.A. https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-pty-pty_email&hsimp=yhs-pty_email&hspart=pty&p=youtube+bill+w&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tL3locy9zZWFyY2g_aHNwYXJ0PXB0eSZoc2ltcD15aHMtcHR5X2VtYWlsJnBhcmFtMj1mOTQyMDZmYi02YmNhLTQ4MmMtOWRjOS1lMzhlMzQwOGFlNGQmcGFyYW0zPWVtYWlsX35VU34mcGFyYW00PX5DaHJvbWV-eW91dHViZStiaWxsK3d-OTdFRDNEMjRBQzc5QjAwQUJDQjU5N0JCQUVGRDlEM0UmcGFyYW0xPTIwMTgxMjA2JnA9eW91dHViZStiaWxsK3cmdHlwZT1lbWFmZl8wX2Ny&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIDJbU5GXgJyi8tKfBI2LgRRefrgMjHUUbPhxm_Jy5GhzxRGqtX1hg4iF5vdZ6CWzsD-ClyhdOqOcEASUhAqsdKT73dp6cn4Vt_hRgyFy3WgVNFhkajiw7cR4PqrQwIyNsdoc7reiV4ywWrBT0vxmMyB3HG_Ll0JHYVNNtZExaxA#id=7&vid=90fee0fe470103a3572765a1b0...

I often tell people my ongoing recovery from alcoholism isn't attributed to one flash of light. Instead I have a toolbox. A plethora of tools has led me here. There was A.A., group therapy, a psychiatrist, medication, a therapist, my wife, books including The Big Book, inpatient treatment, and more. It hasn't been one tool Following through with the metaphor of the toolbox, I heard a line at last night's A.A. meeting: "A.A. has a wrench to fit every nut."

The Ninth Step Promises someone reads before every A.A. meeting are significant to every recovering alcoholic. They also deliver a powerful message to anyone seeking to turn his world around and lead a God-centered life. Think about these words from your unique vantage point, from page 83-84 of the Big Book: "If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to find a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively kno...

I had surgery last month to  my right hand. I had two problems, so I had two incisions. They hurt now! It seemed they were healing well, but now they are red and extremely sensitive to touch. The physical therapist I see twice a week said the tenderness is part of the healing process. If only they would be less tender! This morning I said to myself, "Self! This is a metaphor for another form of tenderness." I use to take insults and criticism quite seriously. They hurt, and sometimes took a long time to heal -- if ever. The Big Book, therapy, and other helpful resources taught me to let criticism go. If someone doesn't like me, so what? Plenty of others do. I don't have to sulk. I don't have to drink. To become less sensitive is to become less hurt. Once the scar tissue in my hand goes away, sensitivity will be gone too. Likewise, negativity directed toward me doesn't hurt any more. I have become desensitized. And having learned that lesson, I no longe...

Sobriety for me has become more than not drinking. It means becoming a better person and being a quiet supporter of others. I really am a better person than I ever have been before; all fact, no brag, as my high school friends used to say. I am "willing to turn the past to good account . We grow by our willingness to face and rectify errors and convert them into assets." (The Big Book, page 124.) Working the 12 steps helped me get in better touch with myself. That meant recognizing my character defects and, with God's help, understanding myself and, thus, understanding others. This has brought me a joyous life instead of mere happiness, which comes then fades. The Big Book continues, "Showing others who suffer how we were given help is 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 ('joy')...."

Movies are fantasies. They might be animated, show superheroes in flight, depict people alone in wilderness, let us pretend to witness a night-time burglary.... I mean, like when two people are talking in a moving car, how do we see and hear them? It isn't really a moving car and we know at some conscious level that they are really actors in a fantasy for our entertainment, yet we gladly suspend reality to enjoy the scenes. And did you ever stop and think that the cameraman and crew would have stopped Norman Bates from stabbing that woman in the shower if her murder weren't make believe? Thank goodness for such on-screen fantasies to titillate our imaginations. Some fantasies don't involve scripts and directors and movie sets and our enjoyment. All that is required to live in some undesirable fantasies is alcohol: too much alcohol. I like to read the wisdom contained in personal narratives in the back of The Big Book. In "To Handle Sobriety" (page 559): ...

"Meditation" used to be a scary word to me. I envisioned some bald-headed man sitting cross-legged on the floor chanting, "Ohmmm. Ohmmmm."Another lessoned learned in sobriety from A.A., counselors, and The Big Book is that I was meditating all along. I just didn't know it. To me, a quiet walk in the woods was calming. Years go, when I lived in Idaho, the highlight of my existence was going to the mountains to camp and hike. When I couldn't go to the mountains, I found contentment walking with my dog beyond my backyard to the sage-covered hillsides any time of year. The ravine there was the greatest quiet I ever didn't hear. Sometimes I thought about my higher power of the time and I even prayed. Some of those prayers were for myself, but at least I was praying. And unknowingly, I was meditating. These days I meditate in the quiet of my house, at A.A, before a meeting starts, and when I'm in the car. As Mark said at A.A. today, prayer is askin...

At my A.A. homegroup Monday, the topic swung to the difference between striving for something and  achieving perfection. A couple of people vaguely recalled something Thomas Merton wrote. After entering a Trappist monastery, Merton became a prolific writer about contemplation, Catholic spirituality, social justice, and politics. His political writings focused on non-violent resistance in combating social, racial, and injustice in the 1960s. He died in 1968. We weren't sure what Merton wrote about striving and perfection, so I looked it up. His quotes echo The Big Book, page 60: "We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines." The following speaks clearly to me about my sobriety and my relationship to God. Reading it is a "Wow!" moment:

I want to take a look at a testimonial in The Big Book, because it speaks of me and my story. It was written by a pioneer member of Akron's  A.A. group, the first in the world. The account begins on page 182. "My case is rather unusual in one respect. There were no childhood episodes of unhappiness to account for my alcoholism. I had, seemingly, just a natural affinity for grog." I had to look up "grog." It is "a mixture of rum and water, often flavored with lemon, sugar, and spices.... (or) any strong alcoholic drink." That's my Bartending 101 lesson for today. To continue with the story: "My marriage was happy, and I never had any of the reasons, conscious or unconscious, which are often given for drinking.... "Before my drinking had cut me down completely, I achieved a considerable measure of success.... But of course, this all went down the drain with my increased drinking." Alas, there goes me. An alcoholic can be a su...

It is more blessed to give than to receive. That's a boring old cliche, but it is still the truth. When I was a child, all that mattered at Christmas was what Santa had brought me . Birthdays were even better because it was me and me only receiving gifts from people who loved me. As an adult, I once had a friend who gave me a vase, just because he saw it and thought of me. I pretended to be grateful, but it was butt-ugly. I knew from the name on the box where he had bought it, so a few days later I exchanged it for a set of towels, which I needed and were more practical. My friend came over a couple months later. I didn't think of the vase or the towels until he asked me where I was displaying his kind gift. My face got hot. My voice failed me. Do I make up a lie or tell him the truth? I stammered around until I told the truth about what I had done with the vase he had picked out and paid for, just for me . I could tell his feelings were hurt, We made small talk briefly...

My exploration into the inner me, instigated by a desire to stay sober, has showed me I need to turn up the dial on my humility. Most of my earlier life was filled with successes in my work and personal life. I think I was an egotist. Then when my highly polished armor developed some chinks, my feelings of superiority were replaced by feelings of inferiority. A.A.'s Big Book and counselors helped me to balance the two. Accepting my fate as an alcoholic was humiliating, especially for someone like me. "...we are not human beings learning to be spiritual; we are spiritual beings learning to be human. In fact, we've found that when people are out of touch with the inner life, they are far more prone to addictions of all kinds. They only look outside themselves for gratification and validation." ( Awakening In Time , Jacquelyn Small,    https://books.google.com/books/about/Awakening_in_Time.html?id=J0hY7iqxg48C ) In God's eyes we are all equal. That realization ...

* Yinz is a second-person plural pronoun used mainly in Western Pennsylvania English, most prominently in Pittsburgh....  -- Wikipedia It's Sunday; another day of NFL football. Sadly again, our local CBS affiliate thinks more people in the Louisville area want to watch the Colts than the Steelers -- even a Steelers-Bengals game like today's. I see more license plates and stickers announcing Steelers fandom around Louisville than, perhaps, every other team put together. The point is, when I can't watch the Steelers at home, I go to Buffalo Wild Wings, a chain of restaurant/bars that shows all games on large-screen TVs. I wear Steelers garb and enjoy that more people there are cheering for the Steelers than for anyone -- including the Colts. For the second time this season, my daughter is going with me. She likes football and inherited my Steelers DNA (I was born and raised near Pittsburgh). I don't know if she goes to watch the games or to keep an eye on me at the...