Calm

pp17331 · Member

Calm

TLH · MIP Old Timer

Yeah I read that one. I liked it alright and didn't really care for the media hub-bub around it. It was as good a fiction after the smoke cleared as it was a non fiction before.

I find that since I've been getting sober (well actually well before I was actually getting sober- since I started considering it) I find the familiarity of that type of book a little bit comforting. A couple other books dealing with the authors alcoholism (or I guess dealing with alcoholism either as the subject or as a constant theme within the story) that I liked were Dry by Augusten Burroughs, A drinking life by Pete Hamill, Angelas Ashes by Frank McCourt (deals with this dad's alcohlism and then Tis and Teacher man a bit with his own), Drinking- a Love Story by Caroline knapp.

I find now that these themes jump out at me from the most innocuous places where they maybe didn't so much before, and I think I glean a little insight with each instance. Off Magazine Street by Ronald Everett Capps was a good one (made into the movie "Love Song for Bobby Long" but in my opinion much better and more realistic than the movie. In the movie everyone was "perfectly pretty".) A River Runs Through it also deals with some familiar issues (for me.)

RyanS · Senior Member

Probably something he ate.
I personally found nothing anywhere near peace in being overcome by something greater than me which wasn't God.

TLH · MIP Old Timer

On page 26, paragraph 3 of the book twelve steps and twelve traditions there is an explanation that deals a bit with this.

"Well," says the newcomer, "I know you're telling me the truth. It's no doubt a fact that A.A., is full of people who once believed as I do. But just how, in these circumstances, does a fellow `take it easy'? That's what I want to know."
"That," agrees the sponsor, "is a very good question indeed. I think I can tell you exactly how to relax. You won't have to work at it very hard, either. Listen, if you will, to these three statements.
First, Alcoholics Anonymous does not demand that you believe anything. All of its Twelve Steps are but suggestions. Second, to get sober and to stay sober, you don't have to swallow all of Step Two right now. Looking back, I find that I took it piecemeal myself. Third, all you really need is a truly open mind. Just resign from the debating society and quit bothering yourself with such deep questions as whether it was the hen or the egg that came first. Again I say, all you need is the open mind." The sponsor continues, "Take, for example, my own case. I had a scientific schooling.
Naturally I respected, venerated, even worshipped science. As a matter of fact, I still do--all except the worship part. Time after time, my instructors held up to me the basic principle of all scientific progress: search and research, again and again, always with the open mind. When I first looked at A.A., my reaction was just like yours. This A.A., business, I thought, is totally unscientific. This I can't swallow. I simply won't consider such nonsense.
"Then I woke up. I had to admit that A.A., showed results, prodigious results. I saw that my attitude regarding these had been anything but scientific. It wasn't A.A., that had the closed mind, it was me. The minute I stopped arguing, I could begin to see and feel. Right there, Step Two gently and very gradually began to infiltrate my life. I can't say upon what occasion or upon what day I came to believe in a Power greater than myself, but I certainly have that belief now. To acquire it, I had only to stop fighting and practice the rest of A.A.'s program as enthusiastically as I could.

http://www.cyberrecovery.net/12steps2.html

I'm certain that there's no end to the variety of feelings and reactions each individual experiences when getting sober. A person's view is the result of their paradigm, the sum total of their beliefs coupled with their own insight and reference derived from past experiences.

I also think A Million Little Pieces was a piece of fiction and so take what he wrote with a grain of salt as much as anything else. But I've gleaned a lot of insight from fictional pieces as well as non- fiction, so whatever- who's to tell?

I do know that when I was drinking nothing made me feel better than posessing the firm resolve that I wasn't going to drink anymore. For a long time that was short lived and it felt really crappy to drink again, but that's the nature of the beast, I suppose. And just like chasing that elusive feeling at the bottom of the second or third drink, this too doesn't last forever. I wake up now and I don't feel that serenity that I did on my first week of sobriety. But I feel 100 times better than I did when I woke up hungover for the tenth day straight. The serene feeling comes back in bits and pieces, sometimes when I need it, sometimes just whenever. I feel centered, balanced- not really euphoric, but just a general sense of well being, knowing I'm headed in the right direction, relatively clear headed and resolved.

-- Edited by TLH at 11:31, 2007-02-13

RyanS · Senior Member

I feel centered, balanced- not really euphoric, but just a general sense of well being, knowing I'm headed in the right direction, relatively clear headed and resolved.

That's a well put description of sanity. Not on the low or high of a rollercoaster ride, or floating in some inhuman zen-like state, but trudging that road to the best of our ability, with direction, purpose and clarity.
The anchor of purpose for me was the result of direct experience, the steps working for me, but what I found in step 2 is that it is in stepping out in faith that I meet God already reaching out towards me. What I did was 'become willing'. Alcohol and consequences had sure helped that process along. Step three was in being humbled by the overwhelming sense of God's greatness, and in the relief of exchanging a lifetime of my own shifting, aimless ideas of purpose for His plan for me.
From God's will being insane, impossible ideas of my own creation, of what I would be doing if I was "good enough", I found it to have been staring me in the face all along. It starts JUST AS I AM and WHERE I AM, in every little next right thing, and a few big ones here and there. And putting one foot in front of the other, in meeting life's challenges and responsibilities.

For you new folks, I have found some pretty useful stuff on the step working board. From different programs, but all aplicable.
Here's one good post on the first step- dig through, there's plenty more.
http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=42763&p=3&topicID=9145759&topicPage=2

-- Edited by RyanS at 12:15, 2007-02-13

RyanS · Senior Member

Another thing has struck me, in attempting to relate to our friends of other spiritual persuasions, is I now equivilate this preoccupation with some (brace yourselves- here comes my pet cliche again) 'zen-like state of being' with my demand for some 'cure all that ails me in a flash of light' experience. Anotherwords, if I hold my tongue in my mouth just right and perform some mental magic trick and 'get it' just right, God will reward me with a wave of the Great Magic Wand in the Sky. I can testify to a bit of magic wand waving on God's part, but the point is, I transfered the same demands for instant gratification that alcohol seemed to fulfill to God.
OK, I now believe this God thing will save me, so here's exactly how it needs to work.
It didn't work the way I wanted. A tough, almost fatal lesson.
I found what I found in the midst of earnest effort, not in the midst of earnest wishful-thinking. And even then, life-saving and life-changing experience was on God's terms, and in God's measure in a manner working for my best interests, not my best wishes.
In my spiritual walk, I can now sanely and soberly apply a simple truth I understand from making a living- I go to work, perform to the best of my abilities, and then I recieve, in proper proportion my wages with which I can meet my obligations.
I do not demand my wants be met, then be paid, then I will work.
Thanks for letting me share.

TLH · MIP Old Timer

Buddhism and christianity as philosophies aren't that far removed from each other. Also- the basic buddhist principals work very well with AA.

In Buddhism there are four accepted truths that are the basis for it's philosophy: Life is sufferring (in life there will always be suffering), The root of suffering is attachment (without having these attachments to ideas and things there is little that can be taken from you. That is a very simplistic definition of a complex statement, but I think with that you get the idea. It doesn't mean "have no beliefs", it leans more towards "just because you believe it doesn'e necessarily make it true"), there is a remedy for this "suffering" and the "eightfold path" which has to do with how you view things and essentially "doing the right things", travelling through life in a positive manner.

Anyone who thinks that meditation is this easy, a one time thing or an answer to everything is fooling themselves. Buddhism is about travelling through life attempting to harm no one either physically, verbally or emotionally. It's a very rigorous course and extremely trying in it's discipline. Like christianity, it has been misconstrued by people who try to force their dogma and personal interpretations on others, generally giving it some bad press (I think presently Christianity is having to field this issue more so than Buddhism, at the present time.)

There are many books available on the twelve steps from a buddhist, Taoist and Zen Buddhist perspective. If you'd like to understand more about that I reccomend "The Joy Beyond Craving" by J.K. Mountain, "12 steps on a Buddha's Path (Bill, Buddha and We)" By Laura S., "The Tao of Recovery" by Jim McGregor, "One Breath at a Time (Buddhism and the Twelve Steps)" by Kevin Griffin- and one that deals with general spirituality called "The Thirst for Wholeness (Atachment, Addiction and the Spiritual Path)" by Christina Grof.

Being somewhat unresolved as to the exact specifics of my own spirituality yet being quite certain as to the existence of my spirituality, I often have to read a lot to understand how the steps work for me. I am of the personal belief that Christianity is an acceptable and good philosophy and a great religion for many people. It is not in my belief the one true religion- nor do I believe it is somehow "wrong"- It is a valid philosophy based in goodness that is held by many people throughout the world at this date and time. I do think the 800 million Buddhists and Taoists holding a variety of beliefs should not be written off as heretics but rather as people who hold different cultural and philisophical tenets than is accepted by many western philosophers.

-- Edited by TLH at 13:37, 2007-02-13

RyanS · Senior Member

I had all kinds of philososphies drinking. I needed cold hard truth in an answer, because my impending doom was cold, hard fact. Buddha's final words sufficiently summed up and imparted me what he had to offer.

"All composite things pass away. Strive for your own salvation with diligence."

Whatever we believe, a side effect of low-bottom court ordered family-pressured dabblers flooding A.A. I think, is a cacophony of ideals and philosophies that come up empty when the cards are on the table. Confusion, everyone having a way which appears 'good', while how this program works gets watered down for those earnestly seeking. Hall of mirrors.
Not many doubt God in a storm at sea or in a foxhole, and it was in that spirit of earnestness and seriousness with which this program was founded. More like a damned club nowadays.

TLH · MIP Old Timer

Well put. (and I have to say I'm beginning to enjoy this more and more. Wanna go get a cup of coffe and proselytize with me for an hour or three? I guarantee I'll run the gamut of available philosophies from one end of the conversation to the other.)

I don't know a lot. What I do know is what works for me, and I know that isn't enough for a lot of people. Some people were not as lucky as I, and have had a much tougher time of things. Sometimes I trivialize my "alcoholic adventure" because so many people I know were so much worse. I just am secure with the knowledge that given time I would have (or- putting it in a future tense- would be) just like they were. My "bottom" has always been fairly conservative, but that's a longer story than I have time for today.

The way I see it- whatever it takes to make it work. If someone has trouble with "jesus" or "Buddha" or whatever than maybe they should call him something else. My higher power isn't so particular about names and titles- what's important is being good to others and to yourself.

Gotta go. Home with a sick kid and I'm on my second day out with a cold myself and need to catch up on work stuff.

RyanS · Senior Member

Why not. And after we've got each other good and saved, maybe we can start our own program, "Windbags Anonymous".

Me and an old buddie of mine back in Houston used to go the rounds. Dead to everything going on around us. Next thing we'd know, daylight poking through the windows, a few cases and a bottle piled up on the table, naked people in the bathtub, buddies calling from jail who had left on a beer run, chicks nobody knew passed out on the couches, blood on the walls, we had sat there and debated everything under the sun straight through it all. Used to like to think if only someone had just been there to write it all down.

TLH · MIP Old Timer

Ahhhh..... yeah well..... it seems..... like........apparently I've forgotten more than I actually know, and if I only could remember what I knew at 18 I'd know everything there is to know. Talk about bottom- admitting you know NOTHING- that's bottom at my house. ;)

The crew I ran with, their needs weren't that complicated and the dialogue wasn't all that great. The discussion (loosely speaking) ran the gamut from the Sex Pistols to Rowdy Roddy Piper to yesterday's fight to how we were getting to the show tonight to how we were getting our next case of beer. I used to get trouble all the time for knowing stuff- like I was supposed to be in school or something. Those guys are all dead or in prison now, except for a couple that went completely under the radar towards the end of the speed riddled eighties.

Nothing like a good old conversation derailement. Completely off the tracks, this one. I think the engineer is meditating. Either that or it was something he ate.

Good times? I dont remember.

-- Edited by TLH at 14:32, 2007-02-13

RyanS · Senior Member

Oh, there where very good times. Back when it still 'worked'. The problem with warstory telling, I find, is that I was on the road to destruction during those times, and to look back to long and fondly is for that mirage to start shimmering again. Like Oddyseus and the siren calling, mind turns it into just the best thing there ever was. And the more I give glory to it in reminiscing, the more it grows. Even after years of desperately trying to drink my way back and failing, starts shimmering again.
Takes focus off of what's good right now too, grass starts looking greener elsewhere.
It was all Fools Gold.

TLH · MIP Old Timer

My grass was never green back then. It was a pretty screwed up time, 15 and on my own, drinking and fighting and doing drugs. I left there when I was just 17, quit drinking when I was 22ish- maybe 23. Surfed, travelled, got married, had kids- those were some good times. I didn't see any of that old crowd I grew up with ever again from the time I left, pretty much. No- they weren't good times back before I left, they were just times. And for me- it never still worked. First time I drank I got drunk, and pretty well every time after that.

I got divorced 5 years ago. Well when I moved out, I bought a six pack and drank the whole thing that first night, after not drinking for @15 years. It didn't take the pain away, it didn't take the loneliness away, it didn't take the fear away- and me being so smart I kept at it a while, just to see what happens.

But remembering that stuff keeps me humble. Keeps me properly scared of going down the tubes.

-- Edited by TLH at 14:47, 2007-02-13