Many relationships on this planet would be dramatically rearranged, shuffled IF WHAT WE PLACED AS CRITERIA FOR SELECTION WERE MORE ON A SPIRITUAL PLANE.

Most alcoholics are crazy as all hell -in one sense or another (by the time they reach the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous) -so, if you don’t get asked to be a sponsor, DON’T FEEL TOO BAD 😆

INSIDE-OUTSIDE (LEAVE ME ALONE)

Now turn it inside-out and tell me what you see?

Tell a man what he wants to hear-and he thinks you’re his friend.

Tell a man what he doesn’t want to hear-and he thinks you’re his enemy.

There’s a difference between having problems and being the problem.

A lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous don’t realize that once you take away the booze and the drugs, you (and I) now get to deal with all the problems in life sober people have been dealing with all along.

Sidenote: Some men feel so incredibly confident in their masculinity that they have seemingly no problem engaging engaging in… While other men seem so incredibly frail in their masculinity that they ridicule other men for doing things only a man who feels quite confident in his own masculinity might think of doing (Ray at S@S crocheting).

Macy’s and Dillard’s Pricing -is it some sort of game the way they go from ridiculously high prices with certain items -tp ridiculously low (after season ends).

Sidenote: IT’S A WHOLE DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE WHEN YOU’RE READY (TO ACCEPT…) VERSUS WHEN YOU’RE NOT READY (TO ACCEPT…).

There’s treasures all around us. Some are treasures to God while some are treasures to man. Most of us simply don’t recognize them! You can walk right out your front door and see a treasure of Gods. You can walk into a thrift store, and if you know what to look for, look for karma you can walk out with a treasure or 2 or 2 that someone else would be willing to pay a pretty penny for that you only paid a few pennies for – If that’s what you’re in to 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️

Maybe I’m the only one who pays attention to stuff like that -“Sprinklers (going) in the Rain”.

…the most difficult thing for a human-being to accomplish -is to go from being a sinner, to becoming a Saint.

My grandmother was the one who consistently taught me to turn to God in all things -through good times and bad.

FACES OF DEATH

On occasion, I’d tell people my parents never did jack for me. On one particular occasion, at about 6 years sober, attending an alcoholic’s anonymous celebration, the topic of my mother and father came up between myself and a fellow recovering Alcoholic. I told him the same old same old-that my parents had not done Jack for me all of my life -It was in that moment that God revealed to me; My mother and father were the ones that showed me the true face of Alcoholism -the true face of addiction! Many an alcoholic or addict only gets to see the face of addiction through the eyes of an inebriated brain. I got to see it for many years as a child, with my eyes wide open, and my brain completely cleared. 80% of alcoholics coming through the doors of AA don’t stick around. Looking at my own patterns, I often wonder if I wouldn’t be one of them had it not been for what I saw, what I experienced in my own personal life through my parents.I don’t think I would’ve made it honestly!I don’t think I would’ve made it honestly! They say the odds were against me, psychiatrist, counselors…. And here I sit before you clean and sober and relatively healthy.

Actually, not drinking and drugging has been the easy part for me, once I got serious about it. What’s been difficult is “the leveling of our pride, the confession of
shortcomings which the process requires for its suc-
cessful consummation”.*

I don’t know of anyone who strolled into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous looking to do a little touch up work on an already stellar spiritual existence.

*Source:Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous; Chapter 2: There is a Solution; pg. 25; pp 1 of the .

Thursday I found the movie “Charleston presents The Bible: The story of Moses” (at my buddies shop). After walking Daisy 2 days prior, and telling her the story of Moses from The Bible and falling short I remember and how it was he came to know God’s mission for him* 😇 God!

Friday, I found the movie “Risen” (also at my buddy’s shop) – After a, the past couple of months looking for it on YouTube, and Tubi, and at the local bookstore with no luck. 😇 God!

Saturday, I was out walking at the University -and I found 2 pennies, one heads up for me, and 1 face down to turn heads up for the next passer by.

Today (Sunday -day before Memorial Day 2021), I was again walking around the University and stopped at the old park I used to when I was a teenager going to the community college for welding in 1980. You’ll never guess what I found hanging on a tree stump – A little red cap with an iron patch on the front that says “KNOW YOUR WORTH”. Now the funny thing is, I saw somebody wearing a hat just like this about 10 or 15 years ago 10 years ago, and it caught my attention** -IT REALLY MADE ME 🤔 (THINK). NOW I HAVE ONE MYSELF -THANKS-BE-TO-GOD!

T.J.I. (this just in): There’s 2 kinds of people in the world that don’t like you:

1. The ones that will tell you straight up what you did wrong

2. The ones who can’t come up with a reason, or will lie and make up one.

*So I ended the story there ( With him meeting the shepherd and his daughters and running off the evil shepherds’ who tried to steal water from their well with his staff) and figured I’d look on YouTube, or Tubi, for some documentaries on Moses -so I could finish the story next time her and I walked -God thinks 🤔 of everything!!!

**Naturally 🤔 I washed that kep (cap) as soon as I got home. Whale (well), it just feenished (finished) drying and… Wouldn’t you know – NO NEED TO ADJUST THE STRAP, IT FIT PRRRRRFECTOE! 😇😇😇😇🙏🙏🙏🙏🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ GOD

(Not-so) “Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be” -and that’s a good thing

How do you spell relief:

•Recovery, or;

•Addiction.

If it’s easy, you’re doing it wrong -or not doing it at all!

Many people spend their entire lives trying to get around (Alcoholics) or, remove (financial success) the struggles of life -Jesus sought them out forthright! THE SECRET TO LIFE LIES IN THAT!

THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL

For some people feelings are a curse -it’s a master-class learning how to bring about the feelings we yearn for!

What in the universe can feel? To feel is the most incredible gift from God!

If I want a specific area of my life to improve then I have to work specifically on that area. If I want a specific muscle or muscle group on my body to improve or grow or get stronger, I have to work specifically on that muscle group and perhaps even surrounding muscle groups. That llesson applies across-the-board!*

* We human beings can become masters of compensation, overcompensation, substitution…. A particular area we feel fearful of or spiritual love or slothful about…. We overcompensate or substitute in another area that we prefer, another area of our own choosing. THIS IS A MISTAKE! And I’m sure you can see why 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️

Being a doctor com a lawyer com a mechanic……………………… these are all useful things that you can contribute to your fellow human being outside of the job. You see somebody stranded on the side of the road and you have expertise expertise as a mechanic……. You’re in a conversation with some people and there’s suffering some symptoms and as a doctor you can… or somebody’s having legal issues and you can always…. Some people even have multiple vocations and are constantly assisting their fellow human beings in passing.

In our addiction, we secretly fought from the onset, and suffer the consequences down the road. In our recovery, we do as advised regardless of how it may make us feel in that moment, and then we reap the benefits later on down the road. At God’s discretion! When, how much…

Be careful what you wish for, you may find happiness. Ana Anna seems to be content with a mediocre lifestyle while she continues to fain the opportunity we once had together and shared many moments of happiness.

I remember when I was younger, having 2 experiences with dogs-one was with a neighbor’s German shepherd who I wrapped my arms around his neck and got bit by on my neck. The other 1 was with a huge huge doberman pincher that I got to play with for a few a few moments out in front of the house on 44 Partridge lane. You come along one afternoon well well my cousins were in school and it was just me how it’s me out in front… Very friendly. And well trained apparently. Anyways I would walk him up to the top of the hill and tell him to sit, and then I was walked down to the tree in front of our house and then I would call him, and scramble up the tree as quickly as I could.. We played this little game for some time period it was one of the few fond memories in my life at that time. And then there was king-fully grown Great Dane who walked aimlessly around the neighborhood. He lived over in an old the band and house several blocks away from where we lived on Bryce road in El Monte. I found a rope and tied it around his neck, and I would walk him around from time to time-to afraid to ask my dad if we could keep him of course. He used a brick as a pillow -that’s how tough king was. And that’s it for a little trip down memory lane for today. 🤷‍♂️

I probably screwed up more in recovery than I ever did in in my addiction and alcoholism!

When I 1st came into alcoholic’s anonymous, 2 thoughts were on my mind:

1. Not dying and I’ll call with death like my mother

2. Not being alone

As I began to become more familiar with the process of recovery a 3rd thing surfaced:

3. Becoming a better person. I realize now that all the struggle and difficulty that I didn’t want to endure in my recovery, similar in many ways to that of my early life growing up…. We’re all in preparation to bring me the above! As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for, you may just have to suffer, and do without in order to get there!

The 1st one I’ve gotten 1 day at a time period period the 2nd 1 I’m still working on.. The 3rd the 3rd 1 I haven’t gotten 1 day at a time.