The Lost Mind

I have lost my mind. It happened almost ten years ago and I have never gotten it back. I am not looking for it either and I hope it never finds me. Don’t feel sorry. It wasn’t original equipment anyway and I have another one I was given at birth.

I will say that the one I lost did cost me a fortune – but it really was getting too expensive to maintain and I am really not sorry it’s gone. I’m better off without it.

Most people cannot afford to lose their minds – but my mind? I could not afford to keep it. Mine was the mind of an alcoholic, un-recovered – still suffering – self centered and full of unchecked ego-based fear.

Before coming to AA this insanity kept me chugging that sauce and after coming to AA it kept my knuckles whiter than the ghost of a frightened albino polar bear. Either way, drinking . . not drinking, it didn’t matter. I was still alcohol-crazy and it was only a matter of time before the next first-drink came along and I would be struck shit-faced – whether I wanted to be or not. This is a fact and characteristic trait of the real alcoholic that seems to escape the modern brain mechanics of medicine today.

If you don’t think there is such a thing as being Struck Drunk, boy do YOU not know much about us real alcoholics.

If we alkies are to “Think the drink through” we either forget to do it – or if we remember and actually attempt to do so, we all come the same conclusive ending – which is,

“IT WASN’T SO BAD LAST TIME – THIS TIME IT WILL BE DIFFERENT“

and it’s down the hatch!

To be continued . . .

Come Back To Sanity

Most of us have heard all sorts of pretty illogical logic from sponsees or just folks sharing in meetings. In fact haven’t we all heard some of the most insane things from these folks? It’s as if they can talk out of every hole in their heads! Many time you just have to laugh.

Most of us have even said or thought them ourselves so hopefully we can laugh at ourselves as well. But SOME of the shit is just so far out there – too far to even laugh at. We can just hope the person eventually comes back to earth. (It can sometimes be too cruel to laugh aloud until AFTER they have re-entered the atmosphere and “landed” safely.)

For example, once they might say they are “mad” at God – the next moment – and with equal conviction – say that they don’t believe in God. What the phuck? How can we hate someone who isn’t even there to hate?

I don’t think that confusion anywhere near ones last drunk – or in between drunks for that matter – is all that uncommon. Personally I think it’s a mixture of non-thinking and pent up resentment rather than the ideas of a clear thinking, thoughtful person who has recently thought through the existence or non-existence of a Higher Power. Alkies mostly think about themselves –as God – when bound up with spiritual sickness.

My own situation didn’t touch such atheism. I already knew that God existed. I’d had a drastic spiritual episode during meditation in my early twenties that changed my life and perceptions in a big way. The problem was that this experience was flip-flopped by my own egotistical nature and I slowly became convinced that I was “special” - even “chosen” and finally “superior” to other “earthly” humans for having gained the unbelievable gift – and the personal fireworks display accompanying it – I had been given.

It sounds funny now. Almost comical – like a real life version of young Anakin Skywalker who turns into Darth Vader. It also sounds sick too. And believe me, I did become sick. I firmly believe that the inner conflict I had brought on caused me to drink and do drugs in order to blot out the conscience so that I did not have to see what I had become.

The continual abuse of ETOH over time eventually damaged my body and kicked it over “the line” – bringing the physical component (allergy) to meet up with the insanity or obsession to drink.

Getting shitfaced was fine medicine – but not being able to stop once mentally satisfied can really ruin THAT solution.

When it came time to “Come back” to sanity – there was still no question in my mind that God was. Hell running from Him for all those years I was convince He was out there somewhere – chasing me – apparently all the way to Hell if He had to! I had been with Him before and THAT memory and experience was still there. BUT I was ashamed. I was guilt ridden – like a child afraid to face Daddy after misbehaving, doing something terribly wrong.

Even though I was “In AA” and now abstinent through fellowshipping, I also had new come to live in my previously numbed conscience.

The conflicted and pained conscience was becoming more and more intolerable. It as if I were living in Hell. No, I take that back — I WAS living in Hell – on earth. I was hitting a real alcoholic’s bottom – right under the eyes of the AA fellowship. I was falling apart and all the meetings and all the fellowships men couldn’t put Danny back together again – despite their lofty collective claims to have that power. I relapsed.

My spiritual experience BEFORE taking the steps – on the very night that I came out of a blackout in a hotel room – included the voice of God telling me directly that He still loved me despite my playing god and that He would help me come back, IF I would do certain things.

Just what those things were to be, I did not know – except that it would somehow be through the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. He made that very clear. I can still to this day recall the words and knowing clarity that accompanied those words. We are talking “words” – words from God – and I don’t give a crumb how crazy that sounds.

What I was to do – the actions I was to take – did not remain a mystery for long, because within hours I was standing outside of one of the worst, most middle-of-the-road, toxically infections discussion meetings one can imagine and was approached by a man I had known for several years and who was qualified to start me back on a path to God and human usefulness. Out of the blue, he offered to take me through the Twelve Steps – and I accepted. I had no idea he was capable of doing that. But he was. And he did.

The result was yet another spiritual awakening that entirely removed the insanity, the obsession, to ever drink again. In less than 45 days from the date of my last drink on October 5th 1999, I was a free man. I use that day, November 18, 1999 as my sobriety date rather than the date of the last drink I remember taking. Those forty-four day in the life of this 18,250 day old man are the most important ones I’ve ever had on this planet.

I don’t know why I decided to tell you all this. I guess I am just feeling grateful tonight for having had a third step experience as powerful as the one I did. I am grateful that there is nothing that any MOTR asshole could EVER say to me or to anyone of you, my fellow Trudgers, that can dissuade (us) from knowing that what happened to us is anything less than a God given miracle. A miracle freely given out of His love and which we can pass on to others who suffer.

Peace,

Danny S

Come Back To Sanity

Most of us have heard all sorts of pretty illogical logic from sponsees or just folks sharing in meetings. In fact haven’t we all heard some of the most insane things from these folks? It’s as if they can talk out of every hole in their heads! Many time you just have to laugh.

Most of us have even said or thought them ourselves so hopefully we can laugh at ourselves as well. But SOME of the shit is just so far out there – too far to even laugh at. We can just hope the person eventually comes back to earth. (It can sometimes be too cruel to laugh aloud until AFTER they have re-entered the atmosphere and “landed” safely.)

For example, once they might say they are “mad” at God – the next moment – and with equal conviction – say that they don’t believe in God. What the phuck? How can we hate someone who isn’t even there to hate?

I don’t think that confusion anywhere near ones last drunk – or in between drunks for that matter – is all that uncommon. Personally I think it’s a mixture of non-thinking and pent up resentment rather than the ideas of a clear thinking, thoughtful person who has recently thought through the existence or non-existence of a Higher Power. Alkies mostly think about themselves –as God – when bound up with spiritual sickness.

My own situation didn’t touch such atheism. I already knew that God existed. I’d had a drastic spiritual episode during meditation in my early twenties that changed my life and perceptions in a big way. The problem was that this experience was flip-flopped by my own egotistical nature and I slowly became convinced that I was “special” - even “chosen” and finally “superior” to other “earthly” humans for having gained the unbelievable gift – and the personal fireworks display accompanying it – I had been given.

It sounds funny now. Almost comical – like a real life version of young Anakin Skywalker who turns into Darth Vader. It also sounds sick too. And believe me, I did become sick. I firmly believe that the inner conflict I had brought on caused me to drink and do drugs in order to blot out the conscience so that I did not have to see what I had become.

The continual abuse of ETOH over time eventually damaged my body and kicked it over “the line” – bringing the physical component (allergy) to meet up with the insanity or obsession to drink.

Getting shitfaced was fine medicine – but not being able to stop once mentally satisfied can really ruin THAT solution.

When it came time to “Come back” to sanity – there was still no question in my mind that God was. Hell running from Him for all those years I was convince He was out there somewhere – chasing me – apparently all the way to Hell if He had to! I had been with Him before and THAT memory and experience was still there. BUT I was ashamed. I was guilt ridden – like a child afraid to face Daddy after misbehaving, doing something terribly wrong.

Even though I was “In AA” and now abstinent through fellowshipping, I also had new come to live in my previously numbed conscience.

The conflicted and pained conscience was becoming more and more intolerable. It as if I were living in Hell. No, I take that back — I WAS living in Hell – on earth. I was hitting a real alcoholic’s bottom – right under the eyes of the AA fellowship. I was falling apart and all the meetings and all the fellowships men couldn’t put Danny back together again – despite their lofty collective claims to have that power. I relapsed.

My spiritual experience BEFORE taking the steps – on the very night that I came out of a blackout in a hotel room – included the voice of God telling me directly that He still loved me despite my playing god and that He would help me come back, IF I would do certain things.

Just what those things were to be, I did not know – except that it would somehow be through the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. He made that very clear. I can still to this day recall the words and knowing clarity that accompanied those words. We are talking “words” – words from God – and I don’t give a crumb how crazy that sounds.

What I was to do – the actions I was to take – did not remain a mystery for long, because within hours I was standing outside of one of the worst, most middle-of-the-road, toxically infections discussion meetings one can imagine and was approached by a man I had known for several years and who was qualified to start me back on a path to God and human usefulness. Out of the blue, he offered to take me through the Twelve Steps – and I accepted. I had no idea he was capable of doing that. But he was. And he did.

The result was yet another spiritual awakening that entirely removed the insanity, the obsession, to ever drink again. In less than 45 days from the date of my last drink on October 5th 1999, I was a free man. I use that day, November 18, 1999 as my sobriety date rather than the date of the last drink I remember taking. Those forty-four day in the life of this 18,250 day old man are the most important ones I’ve ever had on this planet.

I don’t know why I decided to tell you all this. I guess I am just feeling grateful tonight for having had a third step experience as powerful as the one I did. I am grateful that there is nothing that any MOTR asshole could EVER say to me or to anyone of you, my fellow Trudgers, that can dissuade (us) from knowing that what happened to us is anything less than a God given miracle. A miracle freely given out of His love and which we can pass on to others who suffer.

Peace,

Danny S

Is Relapse Just Bad Luck?

The problem arises when people insist that they are only sober for today. If you say “I know I will never drink again” knowing deep down in your heart that you are recovered, you’ll get scolded and told “Don’t ever say that.” – as if it is some sort of bad omen to avoid – and your punishment will be the cruse of a relapse – like some sort of AA karma.

This idea can be very subtle but is it not everyone else’s experience in the Fellowship? Yet no where in our Program (in the Big Book) does it say that we don’t drink a day at a time. It says FOREVER!

To further that, you will also find that if you say that you have recovered that people will say,

“He’s not actually recovered, he just thinks himself better than us. That’s his EGO talking.”

The truth is that the reason for taking the first drink is removed. That reason is “INSANITY” by way of alcoholic obsession. The cycle of obsession and allergy is broken – something we could NOT have done without divine help.

When folks say they have not yet recovered and will never recover, we are hearing folks who have not yet turned their will and life over to God’s care and who never plan to. There is usually no reason to disbelieve them.

Peace,

Danny S

Soooo Confused It Stinks

It might be good to clear the air about some of the words used by so many of us, just to help be on the same page. I get confused too, when we all aren’t speaking the same language, as so often happens. (Treatment center counselors are SO to blame for this)

In AA there are two extremely – and I mean EXTREMELY – important words that are used within the context of the AA Program that many of us get confused when we use them outside of that context. If we are not all on the same page with the Big Book co-authors on those words, and then within not with each other, no meaningful dialog can be had.

My understanding of the word, Merriam Webster’s understanding of the word, or a treatment center counselors understanding is irrelevant for the purposes of getting and staying sober by AAs Program.

What IS relevant is the co-authors of the Program understanding so we know what the heck all of it meant to THEM. And we DO want to know what they meant – because when we do, the darned stuff makes sense and the Program works. I do not necessarily want what YOU have, but I sure DO want what THEY had. So I can do what THEY did to get it.

Some of the confused words are – craving, obsession, and desire,

Craving – The alcoholic craving does not happen until the alcoholic actually PUTS the alcohol into his body (drinks). It is an abnormal allergic reaction to alcohol during the physical metabolizing process. If the alcoholic does not drink, then he does not crave.

There is sometimes a craving for booze BEFORE the alcoholic drinks, but this type of craving is vague – so vague that it can be satisfied by raising the blood sugar level by something as simple as candy. It can even be white-knuckled by distraction or re-directive activities such as an AA meeting or even an engaging conversation with another person – “but it is not the same powerful irresistible craving of the body brought on by a drink. The thing to remember is No drink = No craving. The crave comes AFTER the drink and is the reason we cannot stop once we start.

The other craving is the craving we feel AFTER we recover: It is the twelve step promise that we will crave fellowship AFTER alcohol ceases to be a problem to us and the insane obsession to drink has been removed, not before.

Obsession – The Big Book does not talk much about obsession, believe it or not. But we are all familiar with “thinking of a drink”, at least I am. The Big Book does NOT call this “thinking of a drink”
an “obsession”. (Dr Bob did once in his personal story though)
The only context that “obsession” is used is in describing the alcoholic’s “secret” idea that someday he will be able to drink again and enjoy it OR that no one knows of his drinking.

Obsession is never placed into a “moment of truth” situation – where the alcoholic is weighing whether or no the should get drunk or drink – planning a drink or struggling with “not picking up”. (151:0, 155:2, 23:2, 30:0)

BUT, “obsession” is also often used by staunch Big Book proponents like me to refer to the:

Insanity - The queer mental twist, queer mental condition that centers in the mind (23:1) that allows the alcoholic to take a
drink, even though he KNOWS from past experience that very often he will not be able to stop, even though he wants, needs or desires to stop. It ONLY occurs immediately before the actual drink takes place. This I why we often hear real alcoholics talk about being “struck drunk”. We were fine one minute and the next thing we knew, it was “down the hatch baby!”.

Desire - Desire is not used in the Program to describe the lust for booze at all. The “desire to STOP” is the only context in which this word is used.

Normal people “desire” drinks. Un-recovered alcoholics drink whether they desire it or not – they are insane.

I hope this is helpful,

Peace,

Danny S

PS (“urge” is never used to describe lust for booze either)