A Problem Is What We Make It.

This past summer, Robert and I were walking downtown in a fairly busy area, and found ourselves face-to-face with an attractive young woman. We did that little dance to one side and then the other, trying to move out of the way, yet moving in unison, so that we were still unable to pass. Almost every other time this happens, I find myself laughing with the other person, and then one of us will stop trying to get out of the way, and wave the other by, with good feeling on both sides.

This young woman became angry, we couldn't believe it. We've talked about it since, laughing that if that is a big annoying incident for her, she must be doing very well in her life. I wonder how she'd manage if she were to lose a loved one, or get diagnosed with cancer?

It took me years in Al-Anon to realise that my problems had precisely the room in my head and in my life that I gave them. I was shocked by that suggestion the first few dozen times I heard it, and then irritated and then angry - were these people trying to say that my problems were minor?

I thought them enormous, insurmountable, terrible and depressing. That was my take on them, that was my description of them, that was the amount of room I gave them in my life.

When I began in my fumbling way to try to practise gratitude, I slowly but surely discovered that I had many things in my life for which I could feel grateful. And doing that regularly, searching out the people, times and facts of my life for which I could feel nothing but gratitude, changed my attitude completely.

"How Important Is It?" became my favourite slogan, and I used it on everything over which I became upset or even slightly annoyed. My first sponsor would ask me, "Will you remember this in a week? A month? A year? Will you be lying on your deathbed thinking about it, and wishing you had handled it differently?"

I found her questions blasted my mind open to a way of living I'd never imagined. Why, I could let go of this stuff as soon as I decided to! It's my choice to decide that something may require thought or effort, but it only becomes a "problem," and only takes up room inside my head, if I choose to allow that to take place.

Let me say that another way - I may get stray thoughts flitting through my head, but I can sit quietly and watch them float by; I don't have to reach up, get a stranglehold upon them, and then spend the next two days obsessing over them.

I can watch them come and go, then turn my mind to thinking of that which gives me serenity, peace and joy. As with so much of this wonderful program, it's my choice. I do not have to give the committee of assholes any room at all inside my head. I've got the key to the lock on that door.

Obsession

Two days ago, I dropped my steam iron, and since the floors here are cement under the carpet or linoleum, the distance from the ironing board to the floor was enough to finish it off. Not only did the plastic post holding the soleplate to the body of the iron snap, but the thermostat also broke, rendering it a one-temperature iron, and that temperature was "too high."  Since I do a fair amount of sewing, for which a decent iron is a necessity if one wishes results professional in appearance, yesterday I walked in the glorious warm sunshine, to purchase a new one at the chain store a few blocks away.

Later in the afternoon, when he returned home, I was laughing as I described for Robert my shopping experience. None of the irons were on display, and I'm not about to buy an iron I haven't hefted for weight and ease of use, so I rather nervously ignored the sign instructing customers to NOT OPEN THE BOXES and when I found a likely model, squatted down on the floor with my prize, and hauled it out of the box. Because of my willingness to do this, I discovered that the iron I was leaning towards getting, had a "shot of steam" button located at the front underside of the handle, right where it would irritate and annoy my hand during sustained use. After half an hour of disregarding that notice, taking irons out of their boxes, examining them, and putting them back, I found an iron I liked, and debating the price with myself for a while, finally decided to buy the blessed thing so I could return home and begin work on the winter coat I'm making for myself.

Some of you may be wondering how the title of this post has any bearing upon the content. It occurred to me that because of Al-Anon, any annoyance or frustration I felt about breaking an iron of which I was rather fond, lasted less than a minute. I had the initial sensation of "Oh, blast!" but that was quickly replaced with shrugging shoulders, and an acceptance of the loss. One cannot un-ring a bell.

Before program, I'd have chastised myself mercilessly for catching my foot in the cord and pulling the iron onto the floor. I'd have spend hours berating myself for not storing the cord at the back of the ironing board instead of at the front, and I'd have been intensely frustrated about having been the cause of the destruction of a favourite item.

No more. When I consider the myriad past hours of my life spent bashing myself for my real and imagined inadequacies and faults, I feel for that woman I once was, who lived with minimal self-esteem, and crushing burden of perfectionism, regret and anger. Obsession was entwined with my lack of self-acceptance, and the belief that somehow, some way, I should be able to go through life without screwing things up all the time.

What an amazing sense of release and serenity, has come with the knowledge that we are all continually making mistakes, and that most of us have an impossible standard for ourselves. I'm grateful for my sponsors, who have sat in loving communion with me, as I struggled and squirmed  against the realisation that what I'd once blamed upon outside forces, or other people, was in fact evidence of my own human frailty.

That's all, merely evidence of my human frailties.

I wasn't, and am not, a monster of any sort, I'm only human, and cannot do what isn't humanly possible. I can't be perfect, so why try? Why lash myself when I fall short of perfection, as I am bound to do?

When I got off my own back, I discovered that I can be loving and accepting of the human frailties of my fellow travellers, in Al-Anon and outside of it. When mistakes are made, and a friend, family member or sponsee is rushing to blame, reproach and castigate themselves, I try to find the most loving way possible to remind them that we may be imperfect, but we are not flawed.

Mistakes can be an invitation for hours of depressed obsession and fixating upon what we most dislike about ourselves, or they can be a learning experience - what can I take from this to help me in future?

Be kind and loving to yourself, whether you've had an excellent easy day, or a difficult and frustrating one. You deserve to be loved, because you are an amazing gift. Try to remember that, next time the temptation to obsess about what you are not, arises.

Letting go of obsessing, and accepting myself as I am just exactly this moment, not as I might be were I to work hard at self-improvement for another 15 years, gives me the freedom to enjoy today.

Common Denominators - Obsessive Thinking

If I were asked to pick the one character trait I have found most destructive of my peace of mind, this would be it. I have the sort of mind that, without program intervention, climbs onto that gerbil wheel and runs for hours, sometimes days at a time, until I'm sick at heart with rage, fear and frustration.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the term, obsessive thinking is when I have one idea in my head, and I just keep chewing it over, angry, fearful and distressed, walking through my day with my body in the here and now, but my head somewhere else entirely. That one idea becomes all I can think about; it takes me over completely.

It wasn't until I joined Al-Anon that I began to grasp the idea that I have some control over what goes on inside my own head. I may not be able to stop thoughts from arising, but I don't have to latch onto them like a trap slamming shut, and carry them over to the gerbil wheel for a little workout. I can honestly state with full conviction that I have never climbed back down from the gerbil wheel feeling anything but worse than when I started.

Obsessive thinking drains my energy, poisons my day, and renders me incapable of enjoying my life. I will be moving from one thing to the next like a zombie, consumed with my obsessive thinking, while hiding behind my cheerful facade. It creates a feeling of tremendous alienation from the world around me, and makes me feel helpless and hopeless.

So how do I deal with this? How do I not get started, or once started, stop?  I ask my HP for help.

I call my sponsor, or another program person, and speak honestly of the madhouse between my ears. That breaks my isolation. I read program literature or listen to a speaker tape. That reminds me that we are all in this together, and I am not a solitary lunatic, but one of a large group, many of whom will take my phone calls.

If I can laugh at myself, I can break that pacing back and forth of obsessive thinking. Obsession requires total serious concentration - laughter makes this impossible, because I am given, through the laughter, some detachment from myself.

I I cannot change whatever it is, why expend all my energy and life-force obsessing about it? Back to Step One: I admit that I am powerless, and my life is unmanageable while I'm obsessing. I turn it over, I work my program, and I receive relief. For that relief, I feel a deep and abiding gratitude.

Living With Crazy People

There's a well-known speaker in AA and Al-Anon, by the name of Father Tom W. He's a Jesuit priest, with an amusing and insightful message - you can find free downloads on the internet at various sites. (If you have trouble finding a free download, you can email me and I'll send you some links.)

I've been listening to a series of his Al-Anon talks titled "Living With Crazy People." It's helped me to reorient myself, and today, I realise that I'm not the only member of this household who is living with a lunatic. My husband is also living with a crazy person. I need to remember that.

When I begin to feel frustrated and annoyed with his "isms," I need to remember that I have "isms" of my own. I have my own insanity. The reason I chose the title of this blog, was because it is only when I view my world through an Al-Anon filter, that I am able to let go of my ego, and be more of the person I want to be.

When my ego is driving, I might get a few minutes wild exciting ride, but the end of that trip is a fast collision with a hard tree. When my Higher Power is driving, it's a slower drive, but I arrive safely.

The problem as I see it, is that any time I try to start a struggle for the steering wheel, my HP just lets go -  doesn't even try to keep driving, just moves out of the way immediately, saying, "Right, then - you carry on, and call me if you need me."

Bang! Head-on into the tree of reality I smash. I am a crazy person. I may be a crazy person with some Al-Anon sanity, but at my core, I am barking mad. I forget this at my peril.

Start again. Step One: admit my powerlessness. Step Two: know that my HP can restore me to sanity. Step Three: agree to let my HP drive for a while.

I can be a slow learner, but I do come around eventually, and I'm grateful for that.

Power Struggles & The Three "C's".

"I didn't Cause it, I can't Control it, and I can't Cure it."

I like that little reminder. Encapsulated in that one sentence, is the wisdom of detachment, letting go, and focusing upon my own life.

A newcomer to program once asked me: "Are there three different "it's" being referred to, or just one?" I wasn't sure, as I was relatively new to program myself, so I called my sponsor over, and asked her. She replied that it may have originally been meant to refer to the disease of alcholism, but like so much of this wonderful program, could be expanded to encompass anything over which we had no control, but still obsessed.

The new member thought for a moment, then said sadly, "I don't know what I'm going to think about if I'm not thinking about him, my life seems to have been narrowed down to nothing but the alcoholism."

This is an important part of my recovery - recognising that if I am to change my thinking patterns and avoid focusing upon the alcoholic, I need to find other ways to occupy my time. I need to find something else to do.

I need to pay attention to my own thinking, so that I may recognise what I call "the opening bars" of that same old song of obsessing, and decide that I'm not in the mood for that misery music, I want to listen to something new and cheerful and uplifting instead. This may require that I read some Al-Anon literature, or call a program friend. I may need to ask my Higher Power for help to stop my obsessive thinking, or perhaps if I catch it soon enough, I can change the station myself by finding what I love to do, and doing it.

There will be days when the only way I am to avoid getting involved in a power struggle with the alcoholic, is by remembering the 3 "C's."  Since I didn't cause whatever it is, I needn't accept proffered blame. Since I can't control it, there's no point in having another fruitless argument. Since I can't cure it, I can turn my mind away from thinking about it, and towards life's more enjoyable pursuits.

When life is offering me choices, I pray to remember the 3 "C's" and choose recovery.

What's Your Focal Point?

From Hope for Today, page 145:

"Whatever I concentrate on will become central to my life."

What do I want for a focal point in my day? Someone else's character defects?

Written out like that, it sounds so baldly ghastly, yet that is precisely how I've spent many, many days of my life. Preoccupied with my own obsessing: all else discarded, forgotten, or temporarily set aside. I could be indoors or out, it matters not, all that loomed in my view was this focal point of the alcoholic. And their shortcomings.

I didn't spend entire days, weeks, thinking about their positive character traits, although I was capable of recognising those, when not in complete nutcase mode.

For me, obsessing "follows as the night the day," from my inability to stand my ground. (I know I'm most likely boring you all senseless with this particular topic, as I seem to be writing about it a lot lately, but this is what's on my mind.)

Last night, I followed a line of reasoning from the end back to the beginning, and guess where it started? Same old place. Me with my mouth shut. Too tired to speak. Feeling that it was pointless.

I've created a lot of unhappiness for myself over the years by deciding ahead of time that it was pointless to speak up: nothing would change: I'd said it all before, yada yada yada.

I like something I've heard at meetings: "If I don't respect my boundaries, how can I expect the alcoholic to respect them?"

I'd like to add this:

 If I don't respect my own boundaries, I'm going to find myself doing a lot of obsessing.

The Creation Of Art As A Gift And A Blessing.

Obsessing isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, it's what we choose as the object of our obsession. Art is one of my positive preoccupations - just like any other kind of obsessing, it pulls me into a time warp of complete fixation upon my subject.

I surface hours later, stiff as a board from sitting in one position, hand cramped, neck sore, feeling a satisfaction I find nowhere else in life. Art has been this escape into another universe for me, as long as I can recall.

Due to its engrossing nature, art can be an excellent recovery tool  when my mind will not quiet down through other means. I can't paint and worry - I need all my concentration to try to get that effect I'm aiming for. I'm completely caught up in it, and all the matters that seemed so important before I sat down at my worktable, fall silently away - I'm transported into a place of peaceful contemplation.

When I do stop, then all the minutae of daily life flood back in, and my critical voice starts up - I shouldn't have overworked that leaf, and the background is too blue, yada yada yada.

I've learned through years of working in various mediums, to plow through obstacles in my ability, and just keep doing another and another piece, regardless of my frustration level.
There have been many times when the only way I could see my progression was to haul out old pieces, and set them beside the new.

I've heard people talk in Al-Anon about feeling stuck, feeling that they are plowing the same ground interminably, while to the rest of us at the table, this person has made huge progress in their attitudes and abilities.

There are times when all I can see is my present dissatisfaction. I've forgotten (deliberately, in order to sustain my present sulky mood, or inadvertently, as is the way of humanity) the place from whence I came, its terrors and sorrows, and my vision is filled with the way whatever-it-is in the present doesn't fit my desires or specifications. All I can see is what isn't.

My spouse isn't doing what I want. My group isn't adopting something I suggested. My Higher Power isn't giving me what I prayed for. Life isn't the way I think it should be......and so on, you no doubt have your own list.

I was in this mood all day yesterday, feeling ill and out of sorts and grumpy and hard done by, and this morning felt only slightly better, until I read Mr.SponsorPants post of today, and burst out laughing - I'd been raining on my own parade since I first awoke, yesterday morning.

This is why it's so important for me to have daily reminders in the form of Al-Anon literature, meetings, blogs, and a sponsor - because even after all this time, I can still forget.

I need those jogs of my memory - I need someone pointing out that compared to where I used to be, life is a carnival nowadays, and what am I complaining about? Co-incidentally (right) I neglected to read any program literature yesterday, or I'd have found this reminder in the ODAT, page 96:

"The Steps are like a medicine which many of us won't bother to take, although we know they can heal us of the sickness of despair, frustration, resentment and self-pity. Why is this? It may be we have a deep-rooted desire for martyrdom."

Between that reading, and Mr.Sponsorpants' post, the message is loud and clear, and today, I can hear it. For that, I'm truly grateful.

Substitutions.

One reason we do not give advice in Al-Anon, is co-dependents like me, who waffle between control-freakery, and then with something about which we are uncertain, being willing to substitute another person's judgement for our own. I've just had another example of this for myself,  since I started trying to paint with watercolors.

As a child, I was taught: if you don't know, and you want to know - look it up. Research it, and teach yourself. I learned how to sew, garden, do stained glass, type, all sorts of activities and interests, by getting a book, or several books, and teaching myself. That worked well for me. Painting is different. I don't want to sound too wierd, but it appears that painting comes from another place entirely inside the head. Too many how-to books just get in my way. I tried a painting using techniques learned from the books of a woman who does amazingly realistic watercolors, and all it did was twist me up to the point that I wasn't enjoying myself at all.

Not only that, but I was beginning to walk up to the painting, gaze at it, sigh heavily, and walk away. Substituting other people's opinions on "how to paint watercolors" was ruining my enjoyment of painting completely. I'd begun this process having fun slopping paint around, and before too much time had elapsed, the old perfectionistic thinking crept in, and that wasn't enough. The end result became more important than the process.

Last night I started a new painting, and resolutely ignoring all the advice I'd been gathering through reading how-to books, went right back to the beginning - slopping paint onto the paper, and doing whatever felt right at the time, to get the effect I wanted. It was enormously satisfying, and today, I still like the painting. It's my painting. It's not someone else's painting done with my hand, if you can follow that rather spooky thought.

This appears to be a lesson I need to learn anew with some regularity. Even after all this time in program, just let me be new to something, be exposed to an "expert," and I can begin to wobble and get unbalanced in my thinking. This author can paint astoundingly lifelike watercolors, so she/he must know the "right" way to do it. Stepford painting, if you will. Remove my judgement, and substitute that of the other person.

I was talking to my spouse about this, and they were idly glancing through the introductory chapter of the painting book which I'd been trying to follow, and said, "This artist works largely from photographs, so it's no wonder her technique isn't working for you - you're trying to paint a still life from life, using techniques she uses to paint from photographs."

Clunk. Understanding slots into place. That's why I felt such a disconnect. I don't read prefaces or intros to books of this sort, I skip right past them. If I'd stopped long enough to read the book's intro, I'd have set it aside as not relevant. I can't paint from photographs. I know that works very well for super-realism, but it puts a barrier in between me and the subject; I feel like I'm painting the photograph, and not the subject. And anyway, super-realism has never appealed to me particularly, because the paintings look like photographs, and I prefer paintings which offer me the artist's vision....so why was I getting caught up in this?

Why? Because I was researching "how to paint with watercolors," and this was a reference book from the library. So it goes. I've decided to go back to where I was, before the books I'd requested began to come in -  paint without reading any more reference or instruction books. I was happy at the start of this, it was only when I began to read advice and try to implement it. that I got myself all skewed into such misery that I wasn't painting.

This rather long and rambling post gives a classic example of why I am eternally grateful that we do not give advice in Al-Anon. Just try extrapolating this into major life choices - makes my teeth stand on end, imagining the outcome.

Spirituality

Once again, the first thought on my mind when I awoke today, is reflected back to me from a blog I read every morning with my first coffee. I got up this morning, and walked down the hallway, dogs racing out ahead of me in their usual delight to greet the day, and thought "Faith is simple when our lives are going well, and correspondingly more difficult when we're going through hard times."

Well, it is for me, at least. My faith is tested when I am afraid. Fear is my adversary, and this is how it seems to have been throughout my life. Some days, I feel like my little female dog, who quakes and quails before the new and the different, although she puts up a brave show, barking, while her tail is quivering back between her legs.

I let them out this morning, and they both went rushing to the front of the yard to bark like raving maniacs at an elderly gentleman walking past with his Brittany spaniel - I apologised to him, but he just laughed - he found the commotion entertaining, rather than  threatening, as did his dog, who was gazing at them with interest, ears up, head tilted, and tail stump wiggling - small barking dog isn't intimidating to man nor beast.

I have had years of experience to overcome, with regard to worry and fretting - that was my normal state - I faced perceived threats as my little dog does, barking and snarling, while shaking in terror. I lived in a constant place of worrying that the little I had would be snatched from me - I'd learned of that possibility very early on in life, and it left an indelible mark. From the vantage point of today, I can see that is isn't that the mark has been eradicated, but rather that I have decided not to keep going back to stare at it.

For me, faith is a matter of choice. I choose for today, to believe in a Higher Power who loves me. This does not mean that I will be miraculously protected from the ordinary course of human calamity. What it means, is that I have a source of strength from which to draw, when my own is exhausted.

I have the option of choosing an alternate activity than obsessing over my worst fears. I can decide that I will not go down the road of "what if..." I can choose to live in today, and if I am unable to do that, then - in the hour, and if that is beyond me, then in the next 5 minutes. Some days, fear is the monster in the closet, and all I can do, is keep the door tightly closed, and walk past, bravely whistling.

If I Could Just Shut Off My Head...

From the ODAT, page 315:

"Troubles grow bigger as we spend more time thinking about them."

I've sat in many an Al-Anon meeting, in which any mention of obsessing brings groans and sighs of agreement from the rest of the people at the table.

We can all relate. Obsessive thinking seems to be a common character trait among Al-Anon members. We can move through great long stretches of our lives like zombies in a B-movie: eyes blank, expression vacant, while all the time, we are engaged in a furiously concentrated mental loop which never solves a damn thing, but ever ramps up our anxiety, frustration and fear.

I've gotten more skilled at observing the early signs of this in my thinking, but there will most likely always be times when I find to my disgust that I've been doing this again for the last 3 hours. The trick is to realise this, and stop without simply transferring onto a different loop in which I give myself royal hell for obsessing.

I've had days where I've had to blast music for hours, music which I cannot help but sing along to - that will get me outside my head. (You know the kind, songs you know by heart, and could sing perfectly with no musical accompanyment whatsoever; they're burned into your memory from a time when you put a song on "repeat" and played it 3000 times in a row, driving your parents or anyone else within earshot to screaming madness.)

Whatever works. Hard physical exercise helps my antsiness, but doesn't work for the mental loops. I've had days where I've read every reading on a topic, in every daily reader that I own, then gone online and read blogs, then called a friend, and still cannot get off that damn loop. That's when I remember that I have one resource which never fails me - God. I don't know if I have some strange idea that I need to try all human methods first before "bothering" God with my obsessing, or if it's just the control freak aspect of my nature wanting to do it "my way," on those days.

If I'm fortunate, I will catch myself dipping a toe in that pond, yank it back, turn smartly on my heel, and walk away, asking as I go, that God grant me release from my obsession. I like those times - recovery then seems like a smooth and level path, clearly signposted, with great scenery. The trick is to love and respect myself under both circumstances. God does.

The Many Faces Of Fear.

What do I fear, and why do I fear it?

I've lived most of my life in fear - as a child, and as an adult - sitting in the bottom of the closet inside my head, quivering with foreboding, waiting for that door to swing open to reveal....

...I'm not sure what, but I just know it's going to be ugly and painful.

I've wasted great stretches of my life in the bottom of that proverbial closet, too riveted by fear to be able to think with any rationality, vibrating like a tuning fork to the single note of panic. On my particular road in life, the deepest rut, and the one into which I can fall with the slightest of lapses of attention, is - fear. I can slip it on like a worn old coat from a hook beside the door, when I step out to face the world, and returning from the outside, I can step into it in the same way I would some ancient, comfortable, but dispreputable footwear meant for indoor use only - the garments of fear are always there waiting for me to choose them. Before Al-Anon, I wasn't aware that I had a choice as to whether I wore them or not. I believed, without ever having stopped to consider it, that this was my lot in life - to live with a permanent knot of fear chewing at my gut.

I can recall feeling pure fury the first time I heard the phrase "The opposite of fear is faith." Oh, right! And it's just that simple, too, just put down my fear and pick up my faith, sure, no problem. Except that for me, fear was so inextricably entangled and enmeshed in my experience of life as an unsafe and dangerous environment, that I couldn't see how faith could be attainable for anyone with half a brain. My terrors were not imaginings, they were real possibilities. I'd seen what life can do to those who are weak or even inattentive; I wasn't going to relax my vigilance for even a nanosecond.

I sometimes think of my first sponsor as ever-so-gently, but inexorably, pulling open my terror-stricken steely grasp, finger by finger, all the time speaking softly and lovingly of how much better it would be when I let go, and let God. I wanted to believe her, oh how I wanted to believe her! I wanted to live as she described life to me - doing my part, and then turning the rest over to my Higher Power to deal with, going about my day safe in the knowledge that He was looking out for me, but I just couldn't get there.

For me, fear feels like an old friend, one I know intimately, and don't like very much, but almost feel obliged to move over and allow to share my seat, if for no other reason than our long acquaintance. It can be quite the effort to muster my resolution enough to say, "Sorry, no room here!"

Some days the only way I can avoid sharing my seat with fear is to go in, kneel down, and pray to God to make the seat narrower.

Perspective - Will This Be Funny Later?

We were out with the dogs last night, returning from a long walk on a beautiful evening. Walking towards us were two young teenage girls with a golden retriever - since every one of these dogs I've ever met has had a lovely gentle nature, I didn't cross to the other side of the busy street we were walking along. We met at a side street, and we began to cross, as they tried to turn right. Their dog was having none of it, she sat down and refused to move, and was staring fixedly at us, while they pulled and tugged on the leash, and exhorted her to move.

Then suddenly, she slipped her collar, and making straight for us, attacked our little female dog, who is all of 10 pounds. The attacker leapt upon her and took hold and would not be dislodged, while our dog screamed and snarled and writhed and peed in terror. I tried to grab her, while my companion grabbed for the other dog. No collar to take hold of, and grabbing skin had no effect - they tried pushing and hitting - nothing. They finally resorted to two controlled kicks, and that got her loose, so I could scoop up my little dog, still peeing, and clutch her in my arms.

The entire time this was happening, cars were whizzing by in the other lane - my fear was that the dogs would move sideways just enough to be hit. A 10-pound dog isn't likely to survive being hit by a car - I was terrified that I was going to see her killed right before my eyes, while I still had her on leash, and the leash around my wrist.

Once I had her safely in my arms, my fear turned to fury - I was livid, and spoke sharply to the girls, suggesting that they not walk the dog in future without the precaution of a collar she couldn't slip, and a muzzle.

My dog was unhurt, but covered in saliva, dirt, and dog urine. I also was covered in patches of dog urine, which believe me, is not a perfume you'd wish to be wearing - very strong. Even my sandals were wet with it - gak.

Once safely home and bathed, we were discussing it. I hadn't even realised they'd kicked the attacking dog; I was completely focussed on what I was doing. We asked each other the perspective question I like to use, when talking about this sort of thing - "Will this be funny later?" We agreed that the dog pee bit would be, so that was enough for us to be able to let go of the incident, and resume having a good evening.

I'm so grateful for Al-Anon - without it, I'd have been furious all night and perhaps for part of the next day - I'd have ranted and fumed. Because of the wise teachings of this program, I could try to find humour in the incident, and then Let It Go.

I sat on the couch later in the evening with my little dog asleep on my lap, and thanked God for keeping her safe. She's a comedian, my little one, and very dear to me.

"Why?" Is Not Important.

I had internet problems all day, and now I'm almost too tired to think. So this is going to be a very short post.

Talking to a friend today, and the question of "Why does this happen?" kept being raised.

"Why?" may be interesting, it may even be helpful, under some circumstances. It can also be a procrastination device.

"When I understand why, then I'll work on acceptance." Right. Life never seems to be that neatly arranged - setting arbitrary limits for myself, is just making recovery more difficult to achieve.

"Why?" is irrelevant. It is what it is. I cannot change other people, and I cannot fix the past. Understanding doesn't make acceptance any easier. Some days, it goes down like whipped cream on chocolate pudding - with a smooth delicious coolness. Some days, it feels like chewing straw, and were it not for the fact that experience has taught me that it's worthwhile, I'd have second thoughts about choking it down.

So it goes.

The Damage That We Do

I was out in my garden most of the day today. (Yesterday as of 9 minutes ago) The weather was spectacular: warm and sunny, so I was in heaven, weeding, planning, admiring, and laughing at the dogs. They've got spring fever, and would suddenly accelerate, from a sedate walk to a galloping blur, for the sheer joy of running.

Later on in the day, I realised that the knuckle of my right pinky was very sore, and when I looked at it, it was quite inflamed and an interesting shade of purplish red. I'd been so focused on my weeding, I hadn't noticed that I'd hurt it. In terms of injury, it's minimal, but it got me thinking of how it could be a metaphor for my life before Al-Anon.

In my obsessive determination to reach the goal I had in sight, I was heedless of the bruising I inflicted. Later, I would be aware of the pain, but at the time, I was oblivious. Nothing mattered but achieving my goal. That kind of personal determination can be a character asset, in the proper circumstances. Incorrectly used, it's a recipe for pain.

Today, I was using it to dig out buttercups from between the garden edging and sidewalk; when I was finished, I felt considerable satisfaction.

I'm much more balanced, now that I use my program tools to redirect my energy, into channels where my personality traits can be a powerful force for good, rather than a whirlwind causing major damage.

Think.

From: Hope for Today, page 36: "This slogan is intended to help me think before I act, making sure my actions are wll thought out, not impulsive, compulsive, or reactive. I need to remember, though, that the slogan is not "Think, think, think, think!"
and:
"Think" is an invitation for clarity, not endless rumination. God, help me to think, but not too much!"

I have spent a sizable portion of my life either leaping into action so as not to feel a feeling, or suffocating any possibility of action, in a quagmire of convoluted and circular thinking. I not only did autopsies on past events, I did them on a cellular level. I got down in there with the electron microscope, convinced that were the magnification only high enough, I'd find an answer to my questions.

(What usually happened, is what always seems to happen when I watch a video on YouTube - I watch the first, and some reference in that, causes me to do a search on a second topic, and from there, a third and fourth and fifth...perfect example - tonight I started out viewing a video clip of the comic Russell Peters, and ended up watching Secretariat win the Kentucky Derby..don't ask me how I got there from here...)

I'd search and search, trying to make sense of something that has no sense in it whatsoever - addiction. I had lived my life with the firm belief that if I just armed myself with enough information, and relied upon my intelligence, I would find solutions to any problem in my life. Alcoholism was merely another challenge. Once I began attending meetings, I also began to compile information about addiction from every source I could find, and what I found, after all my searching and reading and pondering was: it didn't help.

My intelligence, my ability to think, to gather information and sort, categorise, classify, was useless in the face of the alcoholic's disease. My brain was, in fact, my own worst enemy, since it locked on to the topic and ground away unstoppably until I felt as if I were going quietly mad.

So, I've had to learn to use this slogan in a very specific fashion. I use it when my emotions run high, and I'm feeling that old familiar desire to do something, anything, to give myself the illusion that I'm "fixing this." I use it when I'm feeling compelled to immediate action; I've learned that short of medical emergency, or a black bear in the back garden, very few things in life require instantaneous responses.

I don't use it as proof that 12-step gives me free rein, to drive not only myself, but anyone foolish enough to lend an ear, right around the bend, with microscopic scrutiny as to "what he meant when he said blah blah blah..."

As a program friend once commented to me: "Why would you want to try to figure out what's going on inside the alcoholic's head? He can't even stand being in there, and it's his head, why do you think he drinks so much?"

Obsessive Thinking, Part 2 - Running on the Gerbil Wheel is Not What Your Doctor meant by: "Get more exercise."

I've got a couple of shorthand ways to describe obsessing - "foxhunting" is one, and "on the gerbil wheel" is another. The latter came about when I was visiting a friend, whose kids had a gerbil, and while we talked, the gerbil was on the wheel in his cage, running for all he was worth. "Look at him," my friend commented - "he really thinks he's getting somewhere!"
I answered, "I can relate to that, I do the mental equivalent."
We grinned at each other, then said, in perfect unison: "Obsessing!"

When one is in public, and wants to share, without giving anyone in the immediate vicinity clues as to just what is being discussed, these little shorthand terms come in handy.
So we meet and ask each other, "What have you been up to?" and sometimes the reply is: "Foxhunting." Or, "Oh, not so good, I've been on the gerbil wheel, for 3 days straight!"

"Gerbilling" just seems such a perfect way to describe the process; all that mad exertion and energy expenditure, and when we climb off, finally, haggard, and gasping for breath, where are we? In the same damn place we were, when we first climbed on. What a colossal and futile time-waster "gerbilling" is: not to mention how it saps our morale, and poisons our moods.

We have a choice, we always have a choice, whether we see it or not. We choose to climb on in the first place, and when we're in full stride, we have nothing keeping us on it, but our own decision to stay there. I can see, in hindsight, that I used the gerbil wheel as a way to give myself the illusion that I was making progress, (just as the gerbil may believe that if he just ramps it up a notch, he may step off into a superior cage, maybe with a little girl gerbil, or some different seeds to eat.)

Unlike the gerbil, we've got opposable thumbs, we can climb down off the gerbil wheel, go over, open the cage door and walk out into freedom. Some days, freedom is just too alarming and overwhelming, when we are new to it. So we go back into the cage and pull the door to for a while longer, it's safe in there. Constricting, boring, but safe. We climb on the wheel and take ourselves for a manaical run at top speed, until we feel sufficiently wearied, and are willing to dismount and try some other form of cerebral exercise.

Such as working our program.