…it starts with knowing something’s (it’s) there, even though you can’t see it.

•Titled credited the the late-great Bill Withers – song of the same title sung by Bill Withers.

I remember going and visiting my aunt and Uncle, the ones I lived with when I was younger for about a year-and-a-half or so. I remember one particular incident where where it was the afternoon and my cousin and I were hanging out together. My aunt, his mother was in the kitchen making dinner, and he went in and got a glass of milk from the fridge. I watched hesitantly as he helped himself. Then I finally got enough courage to go in and get a glass for myself and my aunt told me to wait until dinner. There were many other incidences…. I remember staying with him for Christmas and getting a truck and he got a drum set. I think I was living with them at the time. He also got a set of converse and a 49 er helmet.

Some parents refuse to treat someone else’s child on an equal footing with their own. To some parents it’s an insult to their child, even a flat out wrongdoing -to treat another person’s child on the same parr as theirs. My aunt and uncle were such people. I lived with this many times over the years I visited and, the one year I once again lived with them. It’s a sad thing for a child to be made to feel inferior to another child -less loved.

I remember my Uncle telling me one time how my father never gave them 1 cent to help with my support. Maybe that was it, they expected some money for taking me in. Whatever the issue, I don’t think taking it out on the child is the answer.*

* I don’t recall them as being poor – my uncle had a good job at the butter factory in San Francisco. But what I gathe4 now from many more years of observation – that both my aunt and Uncle are very instinctual, or ignorant when it comes to the protection and support of their own blood line. For some people blood is everything. For some people immediate blood is everything. For some people blood doesn’t mean as much as the experiences you’ve shared with one another. No matter how much I helped my aunt and Uncle through the years I never manage to be taken in as one of their own -in spite the fact the majority of their own children weren’t there to support them in their latter years of life 😒 You may be asking yourself 🤔 I’ve tried to answer this question myself. I think with my history, ultimately I just wanted to be loved and accepted as a member of their family, since my own had failed me.

•Title credited to Rachel Bolan/Dave “the Snake” Sabo – sung by Skid Row (1989).

Many people think they just have to go out and get something and it’s theirs. These people have yet to learn that many things in life are a by-product or an end result of something else (cause and effect). In a society where so many people have lost their sense of patience or the value of hard work put into something… Walk up to a woman unkempt, broke, no car, no job, hungover… and tell them you want them and see what their reaction is. Welcome to that same woman welcome well kept, in your right mind, with a decent vehicle calm a little money in your pocket and a decent job….. Approach them respectfully and ask them out for a date wait and see what their reaction will be. Go knock on the door of a law firm and tell them you want to be a lawyer. When they ask you if you have a degree and where you have worked and you tell them “I don’t have a degree and I’ve never worked…” They’ll take it to come back in 5 years. Now go to school, and learn the law, get your certificate of completion, pass the bar, and then go knocking on their door – Recovery is a lot like that. Staying sober, the quality of life slowly improving – to include our relationships with the people around us – these are all by ‐products of something else.*

*Some people resort to, either intentionally or out of ignorance; substitutes for the real thing, hoping to garner the same result or outcome (usually a shortcut that ultimately fails). And not without cost either – time, energy, money, sometimes we end up hurting reputations, and sometimes we end up hurting those around us.

… Is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety

Personally, I believe our top priority as human beings, and as alcoholics is the maintenance of our spiritual condition -through this all else will be achieved!

A gentleman approached me after the noon meeting in alcohol anonymous and touched on something he said I’d spoken of previously. In Alcoholics Anonymous we say we can’t get people sober and we can’t get them drunk. I heard this in meetings for years – It made me think about the idea or the notion that we really don’t have much of an impact on one another. Which of course I believe to be false! Anyways, my response to him was “We may not be able to get people sober, but I sure-as-hell don’t want to be one of the one’s running people out of the rooms.

Besides, this idea of being powerless over others…* We constantly have an impact on those around us – and when practicing spiritual principles, there is nothing more powerful in the universe!

*Walk up to someone and spit in their face and see what their reaction is. Walk up to another person and offer them $20 see what their reaction is. Don’t tell me we don’t have power over others!

When you were first learning to ride a bike your body probably knew very little about balance – you probably knew little about courage. And unless you were fortunate enough to be able to afford training wheels, when you fell you got backup again and you kept doing so until your body learned. Spiritual principles are a lot like that – At first they feel very awkward, unfamiliar – and we ourselves – unsure, unsteady. But with practice…

You don’t switch up your game in the middle of a championship run! A lot of us are reluctant to give up our old habits – because it took some of us a very long time to master them – and in our own minds, have served us well. Some of them we actually enjoy. This for many is the trouble with change – especially when the stakes are high!

At the hospital where we used to hold alcoholics and honest meetings… One day while sitting in the meeting I looked up at the wall and there was a poster of Michael Jordan which read “I have failed over and over -and that is why I succeed!”. I have never forgotten that poster, and it’s been 15 or more years!*

*So the next time you fail…. The next 100 times you fail….. The next 1000 times you fail… 👍

•Title credited too Gene Kranz and the Apollo 13 Moon landing mission.

A lot of people coming out of the great depression who fought in the 2nd World War made a grave error in judgment – it happens. They vowed that their children would not grow up in the same conditions of poverty that they themselves did. What they didn’t realize was, what they were really vowing was this “My children will not grow up under the same conditions which endowed me with the strength, and the character, and the courage to cope with life’s ups and downs!” And now just look at what life has become for millions of teens and twenty-somethings. Smoking pot and hanging out at home with their parents. Back in the day, people couldn’t wait to get out of the house, make their own way, have their own privacy, and raise their own family. Nowadays, alot of young-adults want to do that from their parents spare bedroom.

It used to be during the depression an athlete would pay money (if they had it to spare) to be able to go out on that field (or court) and perform. To live their greatest dreams! Nowadays, 10 million dollars aint enough to go out and perform, and live their greatest dreams (to make more money than the last cat did)?

If that’s the case then the America I was taught to believe in is one big lie! I’ve been hearing this sort of thing since I was born. I don’t know when it started but, I think a lot of people started believing their own bullshit. And it started spreading like a bad cold. If we can’t do anything about our own country that we’re living in and occupying…. I remember many years before I was born, people standing up for what they believed in, and refusing to lay down – refusing to back down. Why should that change now? 🤷‍♂️

The government in this country learned some very painful lessons about things like Vietnam – Kent State… But learning how to avoid the same/similar incident so you don’t get your ass handed to you on a platter is not the same thing as learning how to avoid the same/similar incident so you don’t end up getting a bunch of Americans killed for no good reason – or worse yet, for ulterior motives.

If we want the right people going into government for the right reasons, we have to put a stop to things like: high pay; prestige and glamourization… and start making it what it used to be: A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work; thankless; hard work; and long hours. If you’re tired of catching rats in a rat trap, STOP BAITING IT WITH CHEESE!*

* And this nonsense about having to be a billionaire nowadays to run for office-what idiot is running things? You know, if the American public would stop falling for politicians bullshit, THEY WOULD LOSE INTEREST IN FEEDING IT TO US! I mean we’re already tired of it – but what I’m saying is is that we keep biting on it. You say, “What other choice do we have?” Well maybe you should start thinking long and hard about that question – because until you come up with another alternative – nothing’s going to change – and don’t expect the politicians to shoot themselves in their own foot – WE HAVE TO COME UP WITH A SOLUTION THEY’RE NOT GOING TO LIKE! ALOT OF US AREN’T GOING TO LIKE!**

The only way I know to make things better is hard work and sacrifice. If people aren’t willing to do that… and a lot of people aren’t!!!

People use food for pleasure, ecstacy, a coping mechanism… in fact, people use many things to replace God, or to run away from the realities of this world God either creates or permits. Food is intended to nourish us, not to replace God, not to take the edge off a broken marriage, a sickly child, or a bad day at the office!*

*In all actuality, many people do not even understand the meaning of the phrase “and give us this day our daily bread.” From the book “The Imitation of Christ”, Christ States that in giving us our daily bread, God gives us our daily mission (in life).