Lack of gratitude is the dubious luxury of ordinary men!
It’s so hard to recover from outside issues when being alcoholic as well. The alcoholic brain tends to blow things up or shrink them down-and-and it’s very hard to recover from anything until you gain proper perspective.
To the insane sanity seems insane. It’s easier to act sane when you are sane.
I tried for years to withhold my anger, to pretend as if I’m not angry – It never worked. It’s never worked until the anger was either gone or became manageable in size.
I have sometimes wondered if other people have the same thoughts and experiences I do experiences I do but just never really speak about them.
The thing about being the type of alcoholic that lives in isolation and whose relationships never really thrive really thrive is that you’re forced to compare your insides with people’s outsides because you never really get to know their insides. It wasn’t until a couple of years into working the steps with my sponsor Granville that it’s that I gained some perspective on where I was along the human spectrum. He looked at me with those soft blue eyes one day and said, “Richard, you’re right about in the middle”
Half of life is what you do -and the other half is who you do it with or for.
The next time you get answer about your dog shedding all over the furniture and the carpet and in the car remember one thing -YOU SHED TOO! 🤷♂️
Many years ago, after a counseling session and it was time to go home and make dinner and do dishes that’s when my anger would come out. Thank God I have something to dirty my dishes with 🙏 Thank God I have a (dirty) car to wash at the car wash.
Life’s tough enough without us making things harder on one another
It’s obvious to me that to be successful in this life doesn’t necessarily require a great amount of intelligence -in some cases not much at all. There are millionaires out there with below average intelligence and people in the unemployment line with above average intelligence. There are millionaires out there with below average intelligence and people in the unemployment line with above average intelligence.
Is unwinning the lottery.-A lot of people who didn’t earn their money end up losing it. Or dying.
When people come in to Alcoholics Anonymous they’re quite insane in most cases in one area or multiple areas. You gotta figure anyone who trumped their own nature of survival and that of their closest loved ones-has gotta be off some real screws somewhere. So, if people coming in don’t ask you to sponsor them commanswer them come or they do and then fire you promptly…. So, if people coming in don’t ask you to sponsor them, or they do and then fire you promptly…. It’s not necessarily a reflection on you in a negative way. Some alcoholics don’t deal with people who are too straight -or in their opinion too tightly wound.
Most alcoholics are extremely sick when they come into the rooms of alcoholic synonymous. So how is it that they manage to stay sober? Well 1st of all:
• I believe God grants each of us something of a grace-period
• It’s not where you’re at that necessarily keeps you sober -but where you go from where you’re at that keeps you sober.
Before you start voicing your opinion about other people’s opinion you might want to read the manual 1st. This applies to any scenario in life. 🤷♂️🤓
Mans tendency to become what he despises or opposes… That’s why when confronting evil (which knows our weaknesses…
•When I used to visit on at the public health office there was a car in the parking lot, And on the rear window it read “”f” all haters”. And I thought to myself 🤔 “Does that include the haters who hate the haters?”
In the 7:00 a.m. meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous there was a gentleman and they’re speaking about how he wasn’t gonna stand for any bullying of fellow members. He made it a special point to manyet to mention people with a lot of time in the program thrusting themselves and their point of views on others with less time – I also might add he did so in a very bullish sort of way lol SEE WHAT I MEAN 🤷♂️
I think it was Martin Luther King who once said:
“You can’t defeat hate with hate!”
There’s an old saying, the harder you push the more resistance you will feel
Why don’t you just try going along with things for a while?
If you have a problem with diarrhea of the mouth why don’t you try remaining silent as much as possible for a year.
There’s 2 kinds of people in society:
•The ones that trust you until you give him a reason not to.
•The ones that don’t trust you until you give them a reason too (and this is the town I ended up smack-dabb in the middle of 😒)*
(DON’T) GET OVER IT
You don’t have to let go of certain things if you don’t want to – Just don’t let them destroy you should you decide to (or the people around you for that matter).
We talk about our struggles with getting over things or getting past things or getting through things: But we seldom if ever talk about the things we’re never intended to get over -If we did we wouldn’t be human.
Offices around the country are scattered about with the intention of getting us to past something. I don’t know whether certain professionals know it or not, I suspect some people are willing to take your money even if they know you’re never going to get over it, even if they know (in their gut) you shouldn’t get over it.
•The child or parent or sibling absent absent at the table for a holiday.
•The shoulder to cry on that never seems to tire
•The phone call that no longer comes simply because they were thinking of you -nothing more; nothing less! Didn’t need anything. Nobody died…
Afterthought:
•The 1st and perhaps only time I ever lied to my father was when I walked I walked in to the apartment stone one morning and he was sitting there at the table having breakfast and my grandmother said Freddy look at how red his eyes are – He asked me if I was smoking weed and I said no.
•In spite of all we had been through, for many a year all my father had to do was raise his voice and give me that look and I would fall to pieces.
•One time my dad (finally) went with me to open house and I remember feeling ashamed to have him there.
•I remember him calling me an asshole once at about 15-16 years of age
•I remember speaking to him on the phone at a payphone where the barracks were located -with regard to my mother’s passing. I remember distinctly where I was and the words that were spoken (sort of a JFK moment). He said, “You’re gonna have to handle this one on your own boy!” I think that’s when I gave up. He took more than he ever gave so what do you say to that?
•When I was 13 I begged and pleaded for a bb gun for 3999 Walmart. Him pulling that money out drunk as a skunk was like giving me his kidney – After all the money he had taken from us all those years.
•All those years taken from us and all those years telling me I have to be a man and take care of my own business – (we) Alcoholics and Addicts are like that you know.
•I remember he got his income tax return and gave me $650 to buy my 1st car, a 69 Blue-Camaro with a white cabriolet top (or was it black) 🤔 I don’t remember his exact words but I remember he wasn’t happy about giving up the money and he wanted to make sure I knew just how much of a sacrifice it was for him. 😔 Some of you people out there have no idea how low a parent can stoop! And of course, some of you do!
•I remember getting smart with Patsy his girlfriend and him pulling off his leather belt and strapping me across my bare back-one time was all that took and it bled. I don’t remember my father getting physical with me lift me very often at all -he didn’t have to. To be quite frank, like his own father… I don’t think he was particularly interested in expending that much energy.
•In another incident where my brother and I wandered off at the beach he and Patsy took off to take her to work at at AT&T. Swell family huh. Anyways we wanted around for several hours till the sun went down and found my dad out in front of a bar fixing the gap fixing to get into it with some big surfer dude that looks like the Tom Selleck poster for Salem’s. Hawaiian shirt and all. Once he saw my three-year-old brother crying he he let it slide. So we get in the car with my dad drunk as hell, pick up Patsy from work… She gives me the lecture of the century -worried about her little boy rather than the 2 of us. I don’t know what I said in response but we dropped her and Gabriel off and on the way home my dad was steaming and made a comment and I made another one in return… He pulled the car over in the middle of the freeway and turned around as if to hit me and I told him he was not going to, And he said my other option is to get out of the car -which I did. I walked down the off ramp to a gas station, called my grandmother, she paid for a cab for the 25 mile trip back to Van nuys…
•One last thing came to mind: My father always insisted on the respect that a father is owed; without giving the respect to a son -he owed. Or something like that 😏
Those are the things I remember
The more you accept the less courage you’ll need to change…; the more courage you have to change… the less you will have to accept. 🤷♂️
*Some places more than others demand that we practice spiritual principles (the town I live in is one such place) -the place I live in is no paradise!
