Month: October 2006

Over and over

My sobriety seems to be dependant on me doing simple things over, and over, and over again. Sometimes this might mean every day, or it might mean on a regular basis, or it could even be that over the years I have had to consistently fall back on the same set of crutches when the going gets tough.

Why?

I think it is because I am human. Part of the human condition is that I am what I think about and what I do on a regular basis. Giving my life over to the care of God as I understand him, for instance. When I do that regularly I seem to feel better, in the same way it does for others. When I go to meetings I often discover that I am usually doing much better than I like to give myself credit for. If I go often enough I can have that realization that I am fine be a larger part of my day. When I read the 11th step prayer I have taped to my bathroom mirror, I am less inclined to be a self centered butt-head as I make my way in the world during any given day.

It is clear too that the steps and our literature makes this point about having to do things again and again. Practicing these principles in all our affairs, not resting on our laurels, and many other such references. It is funny to me now that there are times when I get rather miserable and even realize it is the direct result of forgetting to do simple little things on a consistent basis….as if I don’t know better! Fortunately I have also been taught that I will not be able to raise myself above the level of being human. I am stuck with me and my human condition, at least until my time here in this form is ended.

One nice thing that has resulted from my being careful about doing the work I do, and then at times forgetting, is that my bad days are actually pretty nice. Compared to that old sot I was many years ago, I can manage to get irritated with my own bad behavior fairly quickly these days. This often gives me a dose of humility, can show me I have a lot more to be grateful about than I have been realizing, and can then start to do things to have my perspective move in a more positive direction. A simple prayer, trying to help or do something nice for someone else, go to a meeting, call someone and tell them they are loved.

Simple things. Over and over.

Wishing you all the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

Shoe Polish

I was listening to a radio show (Bob Dylan’s theme time radio hour) and heard this awful tale of crazy alcoholic behavior. I am paraphrasing but essentially…..
Delta Blues legend Tommy Johnson was not only a great musician but was also a bad drunk. He was known to drink “sterno and also shoe polish strained through..bread” when he did not have any whiskey.

I never drank sterno but do know people who have. Shoe polish is a new one to me. Yet as crazy as it sounds I guess it is possible. If it works – that is it contains some alcohol and it produces the effect we are after – some alcoholic, somewhere, at some time, will use it. Especially if we have no other supply of booze.

In the southern U.S. bible belt region there are still dry counties and plenty of restrictions on how and when alcohol can be sold. Local laws protecting the good folk from the evils of alcohol were even more widespread in the past. If you lived somewhere in the south where alcohol could not be sold or you traveled around, say playing music, getting your hands on some alcohol often must have been like trying to get illegal drugs is today. And I thought I had it bad when I couldn’t buy liquor on Sunday.

It is never easy being a drunk. It must be doubly awful to need to drink and be in such a mentally twisted state (and probably so damn broke) that your options come down to things like sterno, kerosene, or shoe polish. There are plenty of health problems and deaths occurring in some places today, like Russia, that are connected to people regularly imbibing bad booze or alcohol products that were never meant for human consumption.

The few people I know who drank sterno said it was awful going down and had some nasty side effects (the human body breaks down the methanol in sterno into formalydahyde and formic acid). Sterno can even make you go blind or outright kill you. I can’t imagine shoe polish, strained or not, would be much better for you.

Tommy Johson would supposedly talk about, and be seen publicly practicing, his nastier drinking habitats. The downside of using industrial products to satisfy his alcoholic craving was ironically the subject of one of Johnson’s more famous songs – “Canned Heat Blues.” Part of this title was also the inspiration for the name of the blues band Canned Heat.

Canned Heat Blues
by Tommy “Snake” Johnson
recording of December 1929, Crafton, Wisconsin
from Complete Recorded Works (1928-1929)
Crying,canned heat, canned heat, mama, crying, sure, Lord, killing me
Crying, canned heat, mama, sure, Lord, killing me
Takes alcorub to take these canned heat blues
Crying, mama, mama, mama, you know, canned heat killing me
Crying, mama, mama, mama, crying, canned heat is killing me
Canned heat don’t kill me, crying, babe, I’ll never die
I woked up, up this morning, with canned heat on my mind
Woked up this morning, canned heat was on my mind
Woke up this morning, with canned heat, Lord, on my mind
Crying, Lord, Lord, I wonder, canned heat, Lord, killing me
Jake alcohol’s [ruined me, churning] ’bout my soul
Because brownskin women don’t do the easy roll
I woke up, up this morning, crying, canned heat ’round my bed
Run here, somebody, take these canned heat blues
Run here, somebody, and take these canned heat blues
Crying, mama, mama, mama, crying, canned heat killing me
B’lieve to my soul, Lord, it gonna kill me dead.

I have been told time and time again that my drinking experiences include those horrible things I have already done and those things I just haven’t done yet. When drinking, anything is possible for me. Since I do not want to end up with the Canned Heat Blues…….I think it might be a good idea for me to try to keep following the straight and narrow path I’m on. Trust God, clean house, and help others.

All the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger

10th step

It was read out of the Big Book and discussed in the meeting I went to this evening.

It is always nice for me to hear: Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. When these crop up we ask God to at once to remove them.
When I read things like this I usually have one of two reactions.

Tonight I was thinking about how I have lately been getting pretty consumed with work (a personal favorite – with fear and selfishness driving that boat for me). Then while I was at work I had a chance meeting with a colleague that I do not like and in talking with her I understand she was getting into a very busy week. I offered, as part of my prayers have lately included pleas to be of service, to help her if she needed anything. That led to my agreeing to a two hour committment to do something for her over the next few days. Then she came back to see me 10 minutes later to tell me she was in a jam. Her husband (and one of my bosses) was stranded at the airport. The airport he was at had cancelled all the flights to the city he was trying to get to. The solution was for me to go pick him up and take him to another airport. I not much of a problem for me to do this, I was glad I had told her I could help her in our earlier conversation. Part of being fine with it is I knew this was part of the answer to my prayers. I was getting out of myself.

This ties into the 10th step for me because I can read that part of the big book, check what it has to say against where I am at, and today find that I must be doing plenty of right things. My latest work-induced run into self centerdness has not gotten that far out of hand yet. I was able to say I want to help, an opportunity arose, and I did what I was supposed to.

A much different, and the second kind, of perspective I can take away from reading this step sometimes is much different. I can come across that part of the book and it is a huge revelation. This is an attitude of “why does this make so much sense right now, and yet I seem to have forgotten so much of what this says to do” – for this past day or week or perhaps even longer! That is when I know I need to start taking some action, as the step says, and stop resting on my laurels.

I wish I was a person that could read something like the pages about the 10 and 11th step in the morning and actually have it stick in my consciousness throughout the day. But that just doesn’t happen for me. Fortunately I have been through enough AA stuff that I can be surprising well on a lot of days, and doing what I am supposed to be doing, with little prompting. So there is plenty that is working right. In some ways I am doing what the book says, even when I am not paying that much attention. These habitats have become somewhat engrainged. I am glad too, because I am told these things over and over. The brainwashing is working!

All the best in sobriety,
AA Blogger