Corking the Bottle

Coronavirus doesn't exist. Think positively. If there is a coronavirus, it will go away without affecting me, my family, or my friends. That's what I call "positive thinking." In reality, that's what I call hogwash. Wait. I do believe in positive thinking. But what exists in my "Pleasantville" doesn't exist in Louisville.  People get sick. Divorce happens. Domestic violence exists. The police shot and killed someone's brother, son, and maybe father downtown yesterday because he pulled a weapon on police. Bad stuff like covid-19 exists. So do rainbows and butterflies. God gets us through the bad stuff and enables us to enjoy the good stuff. He tests us in many ways. My alcoholism was a test. It wasn't God's will, but He used my addiction to make me a better person once I emerged from the darkness of the disease. Have faith in a Higher Power, and this too will pass. I opened up a book I read sometime back and came across a passage ...

Some of the bridges I burned were the wrong ones. Others I should have crossed, but I sat at the side of the road, sometimes drinking. Now I'm sober. I feel God with me. I pray to do His will. Now He leads me across the right bridges and gives me lighter fluid to torch the bridges I need to burn.

Why do I bother writing this blog? Does anyone read it? Does anyone care? Does publishing about my alcoholism bring others to judge me with scorn? I believe God led me to start this blog, and that many if not all my posts here are inspired by Him. Therefore, if waving my alcoholism flag for all to see brings me any shame, I can get over it knowing God is using me to save one -- maybe many -- from the demon rum. One of the early A.A. pioneers said it well in the Big Book, page 253: "If I go around shouting from the rooftops about my alcoholism, it might very possibly prevent me from getting a good job. But supposing that just one (person) died because I had, for selfish reasons, kept my mouth shut? No. I was supposed to be doing God's will, not mine. His road lay clear  before me, and I'd better quit rationalizing myself into any detours. I could not expect to keep what I had gained unless I gave it away." So here: I give it away to you!

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...

I want to point something out about the relationship between two of A.A.'s Twelve Steps. First, Step 3: "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." Then, Step 11: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." Step 3 makes me think of  meeting a new friend and asking him to do something for me. "Take over my will and my life, please." By Step 11 I know this friend better, and now I'm willing to do something nice for Him. "Hey, y'know, I would be happy to spend more time with you, and if you want me to do something for you, just let me know what your will for me is." Sep 11 strikes me as being a follow-up to Step 3. After Steps 4-10, I have come to know God better and my hope is to do His will for me. Before the steps, I was messing up my ...

Lincoln comes to our noontime A.A. meetings once in a while. He is a big, strong-looking guy with a preacheresque voice. At one meeting he confided about Step Three, "I was willing to turn my life over to the care of God, but I was afraid to give it up." That's the antithesis of the driver who says, "Here. You steer for a while. I'm gonna take a nap." Page 62 of the Big Book should  be helpful to all you Lincolns out there: "First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone [See the blog post below this one.] of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom." This step isn't easy. How can we trust an invisible spirit to take all control? On page 63 is a prayer worth praying. Say ...

Pennsylvania, where I was born and raised, calls itself The Keystone State, because people believed that, like a keystone, Pennsylvania held the other 12 states together. Today's A.A. Daily Reflection ( https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/daily-reflection ) calls Step 3 the keystone step. "The 'other pieces' are Steps One, Two, and Four through Twelve. In one sense this sounds like Step Three is the most important Step, that the other eleven depend on the third for support. In reality however, Step Three is just one of the twelve. It is the keystone...." But without Step 3, no full recovery from alcoholism can be made. I think that is right. Turning our will and our lives over to the care of God or to our higher power is essential to recovery. It also is essential to the lives of everybody , alcoholic or addict or not. Trust God. Follow His will. You will find that life is better that way. He knows what is best for our lives.

Women's panel talk shows, news debates, and sports shows filling the gap between halves all annoy me. Participants all think they have something to say and they say it: loudly, over the voices of others. "Hear me! I am right and, furthermore, what I have to say is witty." When I face choices between actions I should follow, my brain erupts in a similar shouting match. Eventually, I come to hush the cacophony and sort through the voices to make a decision. Call it a hunch. Call it intuition. Call it a feeling, a sense. Call it the voice of God. No matter what you call it, I come to learn which inner voice to listen to. How about you? What voice is God's will, and what voice is mine trying to out-shout God? I find the best way to receive and carry out the right message, the solution to God's test, is to step back. Take a couple days off. Maybe a week. When I do that, I can act with more confidence I am following God's will. I ace His test! But not if I let t...

I went to visit a young woman in the hospital today.  I'll call her Shannon. She has been in and out of care with heart problems for a while now. I had a hunch, so I asked her, "You're really here because of heroin addiction, aren't you?" Sort of. Her heart really is bad. But it's heroin withdrawal that actually bedded her two weeks ago. She escaped once before against doctors' orders, but her pain brought her back. Her mother died of an OD last week. I posted a piece here about attending her funeral. She died alone. I tried to help guide and mentor Shannon and her siblings when they were kids. God knows they needed someone stable in their poverty-depressed lives. There's considerable question about my rate of success, as I looked at the woman in bed before me. Once I took Shannon's mom to lunch and she told me of torture and abuse at the hands of her then-husband. Shannon today admitted she and her mom both were beaten often. She didn'...

[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...

I used to work with kids from financially deprived families. Some had parents lost in drugs and alcohol. Some had no idea what love was but knew something was missing in their homes. Some suffered abuse. All were growing up among classmates who lived lives that appeared better, more successful -- and unattainable. I tried to show them there were choices in life. That was tough. One girl in middle school told me the power to her house was turned off every month because her parents hadn't paid the bill. She and her younger brothers had to get ready for school in the dark, unaware of what clothes they had put on or how unkempt their hair was. Sometimes those same kids prepared for school without running water. How can one make a difference in lives like these? I tell you this because I don't really know if taking these kids to restaurants, sporting events, or even to my house, which at that time was home to a functioning model family, ever taught them there was a different way...

The Bible says, " For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." (Ecclesiastes, 3:1) My season is winter. It's hard for me to run anymore. Or go down steps without a handrail. My daughters are approaching middle age. It's still summer for them, but autumn isn't far away. My hands are stiff with arthritis. Even interesting TV shows put me to sleep. I forget stuff, but I remember when we had no personal computers or cell phones. Or blogs. Yeah, winter is setting in all right. I was in just 32 when the Bangles sang, "Look around. Leaves are brown. And the sky is a hazy shade of winter." Now I know what that means. But now doesn't have to be the winter of our discontent. (I tinkered with Gloucester's quote from Richard III.) This season has given me a new look at life. I found God, and then He led me to sobriety. That changed everything. I have an opportunity to influence alcoholics and others. I'm pleased w...

"I don't drink to get happy or forget the pain. I drink to stop the voices in my head."  -- Andrew Dice Clay I'm sorry for quoting a potty mouth like Dice Clay. But his words, in this instance, apply to the message I wanted to deliver to you today. I once drank because I wanted to. I didn't want to quit. When I finally came to the realization that I had to stop, I still didn't stop. I relapsed again and again. When I bought liquor, it wasn't some part of a big plan, because I was depressed, because I was celebratory, because I was hopeless, or because I was angry. I drank because the voices in my head told me to. "Come on," they said. "Prove to yourself you aren't an alcoholic." "You can just drink a little at a time and you won't get drunk." "Nobody will ever know." "You can drink only late at night and it will help you sleep better." "Don't let Kathy (my w...

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 worth me considering this new idea...