1)Love -the kind we are all familiar with (most anyways)!

2)L.of.E. -the kind we are all-too-familiar with (Lack-of-Effort).

•Title credited to Bill Conti song of same name featured in the film “Rocky ll” (1979). Sung in cameo appearance by “Frank Stallone & the Streat-Beats”.

There’s 2 kinds of people in the world: One I absolutely hate (figure of speech); the other i absolutely love (not a figure of speech).

1.The one’s who can make you feel like your problems are no big deal (are solvable).

2.The one’s who can make you feel like your problems don’t matter (to them).

When Daisy, our little Chihuahua wants love, SHE SIMPLY ASKS FOR IT! How many of us are afraid ask for it -and (in some cases) with good reason. Perhaps the most important thing to us is also the thing we fear most -asking for!*

*Which brings to mind another thought 🤔. “With regard to sharing with others our deepest, darkest secrets… the harder ones are the one’s we benefit from most!

So what’s the common thread here? The things of the utmost importance to us, the utmost benefit to us -we fear the most!**

**The same thing that allows the alcoholic to survive his or her Alcoholism decade after decade, is the same thing keeps them from taking that next crucial step in their own recovery decade after decade! 🤷‍♂️

!!!!!

There is always atleast a grain-of-truth to be found in every one of these posts. IN EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM -I GUAROOOON-TEE IT! 😉

Well if that’s the mentality moving forward (with regard to the problems of modern-day America…) I guess we’re all screwed!*

*May as well throw in “Can’t fight city-hall!” while we’re at it!

What I never heard in counseling calm that is until this last go round recently. With all my complaining and criticizing of the world around me… “You’re right, you do need all these things that are lacking in your life -and you are right to feel the way you do”.

Remember how they were telling parents that it’s not the amount of time you spend with your children but the quality of the time you spend with them -to appease concerns (guilt) regarding the wave of two-income families that came into effect in the late 70s…? 80s? Well now we know that’s bull…. When I started counseling the big thing was Bradshaw’s homecoming and self-parenting, self-nurturing… There is probably a lot of validity to all event. A good balance for any human being is the right amount of self love, the right amount of other love, and the right amount of godly love. But I never heard anybody in those counseling sessions early on talk about the necessity of love of others and the necessity of love of God. If you take those two experiences as a whole, one could argue:

•There was justification, if not prompting for the breaking down of and down of the family in the late seventies, eighties…

•And the same could be said of the breaking down of the social ties in America. “Who needs other people, I can love myself”.

In both instances, has America become better, stronger based upon this reasoning? I do not believe so! Have our children become better adults and members of society as a result? Have we become stronger, more cohesive as a nation as a result of these philosophies/theories? Again, if I played the devil, and my aim was the break down and destruction of mankind, this is what I’d be whispering in your 🦻(hearing-aid)*.

*America’s still the best country in the world – Being the best isn’t necessarily saying much these days! How long are we gonna ride those coat tails?

** When our grandparents and great grandparents started saying “What’s wrong with this new generation?” We really should have stood up and took notice! In a way they did it to themselves though. The people that came out of the depression and World War II, and vowed their children would never suffer the same pangs. They took away the very things that made them the people that they themselves were proud to be! 🤔 …and 👹 scores again!!!!!!

As difficult as this may be to fathom -God still has a perfect record!

I remember the evening very clearly. I was riding around with my cousin Tony and his friend Gary in the back seat of gary’s Fairlane?The boys were up front putting them down and joking about as young men often do. And all of a sudden I came to the realization that I was going to die! That life on this planet as I knew it, and all the experiences would someday seize-along with me. It scared the hell out of me for the hour-and-a-half or so. I’m not quite sure what all that was about. I’m not sure if it’s a common thing to all human beings -I only know what happened to me at that age.

Sidenote: The thought came to me a number of years ago that alcoholics being self-centered in the extreme, highly intelligent… The thought of their own mortality’s got enough to drive anyone to drinking. 🤷‍♂️

Sidenote #2: Alcoholics have a tendency to use a magnifying glass in many of their situations. We take certain things of our own choosing, and and magnify them. We take certain other things, turn the magnifying glass around, and minimize them. One of the hardest things in the world for an Alcoholic to do is see things right sized. The two hardest things for an alcoholic are to do the next right thing and do nothing at all.

Sidenote #3: A lot of people in the world suffer through traumatic experiences both as adults and as children. Using the metaphor above regarding the magnifying glass… While in counseling 20 some years ago, or perhaps doing 12 step work with my sponsor -Granville (a notable mention -post-mortem), I began to think what it must be like to deal with such issues as molestation, physical abuse, Alcohol parents, abandonment, trying to form one’s identity moving from home to home, city to city, state to state, trying to acquire a consistent set of values and beliefs and based on so many different ones (oh, lettuce not forget diet)*. In any event, trying to see the reality of, behind all these events and with an Alcoholics’ brain which has aversion towards the aforementioned… All I can say is that it took a hell of a long time to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again -decades! Well I guess I could add one more thing lol -people like myself in Alcoholics Anonymous who fail to stay sober…. I don’t blame them one bit!

*I think one of the worst things that ever happened to me as a child was living with grandma and grandpa heard. They’re standard of living in quality of life was so high that everything and everyone else seemed to pale. I think most people are lucky to know that they are not necessarily well off or bad off by living under one roof they’re entire childhood. Perspective was something that was thrust upon me very early in life.

Sidenote #4: I know this may sound crazy -but I sometimes get the notion that satan had it in for me. That he foresaw the development of “this reaching out to and imploring of others”. I had a very interesting conversation with a brilliant gentleman by the name of Ramon some 24 years ago. He said the molestation that took place with my cousin was in part due to my powerful presence in his home. All of it, the molestation, the meanness… All designed to counter, to neutralize, to disrupt, eliminate… … What did I know, I was 4 years old. And what do I know looking back? It was just a perspective I had never considered to that point. One other rather profound experience I had with Ramon was that at about 7 years sober, beleaguered sense-or-worth and all -in some of our discussions together, Ramon started building me up and telling me things I’d never heard from another human being before. It changed forever my outlook on who I was -it planeted a seed in me that has continued to grow, and flourish to this day. God always gives us what we need – and He is always on time!

You begin to recognize not only your own mortality, but the mortality of those around you as well as that of the experiences in life you will have… Some figured out sooner while others later. I think it’s a grave mistake in life to start experiencing this attitude. How much we take for granted until we gain in this wisdom.

Let’s play a game called… Well let’s just play it! When was the 1st time you…? When was the last time you…? When do you think will be your last time….? Very few people people go through life saying they didn’t spend enough time at the office -and as humorous as that sounds, even fewer people go to their graves with a sense of fulfillment or satisfaction regarding the things, the people the loved most.

Sidenote: This came to me a very long time ago. Most times we regret on our deathbeds things we fail to regret in our hey•day. Why don’t you make a list of some of those things now, and get after them! Hint: Pride