Tendon is doing much better

I don't know what caused the incredible flare up of inflammation, and, frankly, had expected it to last longer, but it seems to be mysteriously disappearing at a similar rate to how it came. (Well, that, and ice packs and 24 hour NSAID coverage and passive and active range-of-motion exercises daily).

I can type now, but will keep it very short, so as not to stress the forearm and cause it to inflame again.

It feels great to be able to floss again, and brush my teeth correctly. And shampoo my head with two hands.

The poor Germans, though. I absolutely cannot hit tennis balls, now. I'm enlisting the help of volunteers, and for them I am grateful.

The things we take for granted...

We need reminders, now and then, don't we?

-The Traveler

gone awhile

ive blown out a tendon in my dominant arm and cant tpe

On Willingness: Flexing at the Poll

You know you're getting up there in the years when you look back on your life and think of the experiences you've had, and they seem surreal, that you did that. When I look back, I have memories of doing things that amaze me, and had they not been planted in my memory, I would doubt that was part of my past.

I have some horse parts to my past. I spent some summers wrangling horses up in the Rocky Mountains. I did a lot of trail riding. Later, in college, I did some racehorse workouts, riding those towering Thoroughbreds on a track.

I've been thrown from a horse and stomped on under hoof on a paved road. I've had a saddle slip off, and underbelly, in the middle of a trail on a hillside so steep that I could barely dismount and re-cinch that thing, for danger of falling down the hillside. I've been on a horse going through a bog hip-deep, into mud suction so tight that when that horse heaved his hindquarters from the mud, the mud sucked the iron shoe right off that hoof as it came out of the mud. (Fortunately, we had an amateur farrier on the trail with us, and we were able to replace the shoe, or the hoof would have worn to nothing in an hour or so, walking the rocky surfaces.)

There are many facets to the different styles of horsemanship, and riding.

One thing I never had the budget for was Dressage. I had a friend, whose father was a wealthy New York publisher, who was into Dressage, though, and I learned a bit about the sport / art form. Dressage is seen in the performances of the Royal Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, whose horses became famous for the heroic rescue they underwent during WWII, to save these animals and this art form. I'm always amazed at how, when we learn the higher ways of working with animals, we can apply the same principles to humans. But we seldom do!

Dressage (a French term meaning "training") is a path and destination of competitive horse training, with competitions held at all levels from amateur to the Olympics. Its fundamental purpose is to develop, through standardized progressive training methods, a horse's natural athletic ability and willingness to perform, thereby maximizing its potential as a riding horse. At the peak of a dressage horse's gymnastic development, it can smoothly respond to a skilled rider's minimal aids by performing the requested movement while remaining relaxed and appearing effortless.

One of the precepts in Dressage is a term called "flexing at the poll." You can see this in action well in the above graphic. "Flexing at the poll" is when a horse has the head pulled in and up by the rider's position of the reins. The rider guides the horse's head position by gentle pressure on the bit through the reins, and positioning of the hands.

The "poll" of a horse is the occipital region of the head, located just behind the ears. When a horse flexes at the poll, he bends this region of the neck, in order to tuck his chin toward his chest and raise the head.

Flexing at the poll results in a beautiful form. The head is raised high and the neck arched and elegant. The plane of the horse's face is vertical to the ground, as seen by the observer in the stands - an aesthetically pleasing line. But flexing at the poll is functional as well, more importantly. By flexing at the poll, a horse shifts the location of his center of gravity.

Left to his own will, a horse will stretch out his neck comfortably, lowering his head and pushing the muzzle out forward. But this head position shifts his center of gravity forward in the horse. If you see a picture of a racehorse running, you see this position - head and neck down toward the horizontal, muzzle stretched forward. But think also of the position of the jockey: the jockey is perched way up front on that horse, up over the withers, up over that horse's center of gravity, which is way forward in this head position.

In Dressage, where horses are asked to do fancy footwork and a sort of ballet-of-the-equine, the physics are similar to a gymnast on a balance beam. It's all about balance, and about controlling the center of gravity in order to accomplish technically difficult moves. The horse's four feet are often off the ground, shifting positions during the beautiful horse-dance. It's a precarious balance of a half-ton of weight with a high center of gravity. And for this reason, the horse must have his center of gravity underneath a well-seated rider, and be centered for balance.

So there are two points here: First, that the rider must be well-seated, which means over the horse's back, not up on the withers in precarious balance like a jockey rides. Second, that the horse must have his center of gravity directly underneath the rider's center of gravity, in perfect alignment. This way, when the horse dances, delicately maneuvering through complex moves, there is a tight overall center of gravity.

When you are trying to do Dressage, this makes all the difference in how gracefully the horse and rider can move together - whether the horse is willing to flex at the poll.

But horses can be stubborn animals, wanting "their own head" and not willing to submit, or accommodate to a rider's instruction. They can balk and get stiff, refusing to flex at the poll. The most highly sought after performance horses are those with a flexible, willing attitude... those that willingly work WITH their rider, and flex at the poll.

We are like horses, flexing, or not, at the poll, when it comes to our will. Flexing at the poll is our version of willingness, to turn our life and our will over to our HP. We either balk and become brittle, or we learn to flex. Those of us that flex at the poll learn that by doing so, our center of gravity becomes aligned with that of our Higher Power, and the beautiful ballet can commence.

**********

So as I'm writing this, I'm listening to a tape by Joe and Charlie, and a couple things pop out at me:

"Willingness is a one-person job..." - the only one who can effect it in me... is me.

"You have a choice: Self-will, or the will of your HP."

***********

And it all amounts to flexing at the poll.

-The Traveler

Oh, and, I just have to add a footnote: Lipizzaner horses are born black, and mature to white. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

On Even When, Especially When, It Hurts

This fall, one of the themes that has been swimming around in the noggin has been that emotions are indicators - that they are neutral signposts along the route of recovery with messages that indicate truths, via reactions. Our job is to note what they are, then do the detective work to see the source, the root, the base issue that needs work.

I was in a meeting last night and shared some perspective, and afterwards a participant came up and told me that they didn't want to hear what I had to say, and that it made them uncomfortable. And then they said I often share things that they don't like to hear. But that these things are often the things they need to hear, but don't want to. And they thanked me.

This meeting is relatively new, and it's very small, and gutsy in nature. It's a place of high risk, because we really get into issues, and it's also a place of safety, because we have an unspoken respect for the risks taken there. I am very grateful for such an opportunity. For all the other meetings I attend where I listen, and focus, and keep my mouth shut, I make up for it in this meeting, extruding the issues from my mind in this venue, out into the stark spotlight. I force myself, and allow myself, to let it flow in this venue, and often am amazed at the stream of consciousness that comes forth.

I find I often will bring up something - whether it be a perspective, an analogy, an approach, or a lesson - to illustrate it for others. And then, a few days later, my own denial thins, and I see I was speaking to myself, bouncing off the mirrors in that room.

I'm always taken aback at this, when it happens, surprised. Surprised at the workings of my subconscious, how dead-on it appears to be at identifying the lynch pin in a pile of nuts and bolts. And how clever it is, that I bring it out for others, where I perceive it as safe, because it's not for me, and then, in a few days, something happens where I get a sort of deja vu experience and I re-hear my own words, and see how they apply to me, and how perfectly suited they are.

And so a funny thing has started to happen, as I have learned this pattern. I now watch, I now listen, to what comes out of my mouth, and I start to pay attention to what I say to others, immediately - begin to look for the real McCoy, in my own journey. It's rather like playing hide-and-seek with oneself, where one is both parties.

One of the reasons we cocoon in denial is security. Denial is at heart the avoidance of pain, I suspect. That which we deny is that which we fear. And often, we fear that which is painful, for whatever reason. We don't want to engage our pain, because we instinctively know we'll have to go through it, to get to the other side, to growth.

Perhaps we fear failure - that we haven't the mettle to succeed at this journey through our pain. Perhaps we fear oblivion - that by leaving behind the known, shedding our old selves through pain, we will be left wondering who we now are. It is painful, getting to essential truths, and also emerging from denial that some of our reality is just a liquid construct, and has no answers but instead is a process rather than a concrete destination.

Because those uncomfortable times when that pain is triggered, and our response in group is a fear-derivative emotion like hurt, anger, or defiance, there's a message strong and clear, in the emotions.

As I'm writing this, I have an inner dialogue playing, arguing which is first, the chicken or the egg: which is the inner-core state and which is the resulting reaction - fear or pain. Perhaps it isn't definable, or perhaps it doesn't matter, just that we understand that the two are inextricably linked. Hell, I don't have the answers; I only have the questions.

But my own experience has shown that when I experience one, the other is present in some form, always. And these fraternal twins invariably point to work that needs to be addressed, in our recovery.

And so in our gutsy group, we are evolving this Truth:

Pay Attention Even When, Especially When, It
Hurts.

Food for thought.

-The Traveler

On A Tale of Two Balls, Part II

Part I: When I play ball with the Germans, it's like playing with two different beasts entirely. One is so like a normie, and one so like an addict. They both have these funny ways of believing things - of making their reality fit their beliefs.

But before we talk about playing ball, and the uncanny lessons in addictive personality traits and behaviors that these guys highlight, let's back up and just have a tour of everyday oddities, with these two.

The Big "W" has full rights, within my household. He's earned them - by being stable, non-destructive, obedient, and a myriad of other pleasing things. He reads my demeanor, and knows what to do, and listens with an uncanny focus.

"A," however, does not have full rights - but it's of his own doing. And he RESENTS this.

Oh, does he harbor resentments.

"A" cannot have run of the whole household because of a variety of reasons. First, I do not want to expand his neurotic-pee-zone into any more of the household carpeting than is necessary. He's gotten a lot better as he's matured, but it still does happen on occasion - perhaps once a month, a small stream of a partial-ounce or so.

But it DOES still happen, and enough is enough. I have to have boundaries - what I will accept, in household hygiene - do I not? (Fortunately, I have a steam cleaner/extractor type machine, or he'd be banished to hard floors ONLY. Oh, and enzymatic cleaner solutions that break down the pee.)

Secondly, "A" does not settle himself.

When he's in a room with a person, he has to stay-in-their-face. He physically rubs against you like a cat, and if you ignore him (which is rather difficult as he's pushing 100 lbs and there's not an ounce of fat on him - I don't believe in fat pets), he inserts his overly-long American-bred snout under your arm and - with surprisingly violent thrust - attempts to dismember the extremity.

Or he paws the edge of the table or desk or couch with a force behind his paw and inch-long claws that can ruin finishes and fabrics.

Or he puts his Kong upon your keyboard, and then gnaws on it, or rolls it with his nose to behind the keyboard, where he'll have to block the keyboard with his big lunk-head as he tries to gnaw it there. He's rather tall, and can look over a table top or desk top - disconcerting if you are having beef for dinner. He knows better than to approach such a delicacy, and stays quiet as I insist on manners in the kitchen, but he'll just stay as close as he dares and breathe on you the entire meal, quietly staring at that meat. He will not go lay down, and settle, as Big "W" does, at mealtime.

Or if you're sitting in a chair, he will literally try to climb into your lap, one forepaw then the other, and then try to shove his wedge-like snout into your - ahem - nether regions, as though he thinks himself a tiny lap dog seeking the comfort of a small corner of space. It doesn't occur to him that his hindquarters are still on the ground. Totally body dysmorphic, "A" is.

And you can't stop him. You can scold him, or physically remove him, or even forcefully shove him away, and his feet stay planted and he bounces right back into position just like a rubber cartoon. Funny, how he's so clever with an extensive arsenal of behaviors to garner attention and get what he wants, but seems to have no IQ whatsoever when I ask him for something I want. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

So, first thing in the morning, after the Big "W" has awakened me with his bedside ritual, the two of us head down the stairs, where "A" without fail is stationed, front two paws on exactly the first step, the boundary where he is allowed, and no farther.

"A" stands sentry, in this position, awaiting our arrival, each morning. And each morning, he faces the same quandary: seek love and attention from me, or act out on his resentments against the more privileged Big "W."

Inevitably, the same scene plays out, every single day. "W" heads down the stairs in advance of me, and as "W" hits the level of the first step, "A" is there, jaws widely agape, waiting to swallow "W's" head, blocking "W's" descent into the kitchen.

"A" attempts to engulf "W's" head into his mouth, and "W" turns his head sideways, avoiding the annoyance, stepping around the bulky mass of "A's" body, as "A" prances alongside, still trying to swallow "W's" head. It's so comical. "A" is so frustrated by his resentments - no doubt replayed all night long as he sleeps alone downstairs in second-class pack status - that he looks forward each morning to releasing his frustration in this act of defiance toward his higher-ups.

Thank goodness "W" is ego-stable and feels no need to prove himself in the face (pun!) of this annoyance, each and every single morning, like clockwork.

And this has gotten long enough, for today. Stay tuned for Part III.

-The Traveler

On Sometimes, I Just Wanna Play

HQFT: 2 Thousand and 8 Words

We grieve alone,

But we heal in community.

On One Less Leg, to Stand Upon

OK, I got the update on Marlboro Man's son, for those of you wondering. I call the son Heroin Dude.

Marlboro Man took himself back to the Catholic Soccer Mom's Al-Anon group and poured out his update thusly:

Heroin Dude is still in the hospital, on dialysis. They do not know if his kidney function will return or not. He is conscious but sedated and under pain management.

They had to amputate his leg, below the knee.

From what Marlboro Man told me last time I ran into him, it sounds as though the tissue damage Heroin Dude sustained from a funny position while he was passed out caused swelling in the calf.

When this happens, the fascial sheaths (the connective tissue encasements) in the calves are rather unforgiving - they do not stretch- and if the calf muscle tissue tries to swell, it basically chokes off its own blood supply, thereby killing itself. Ergo, the need to amputate.

Stay tuned, for another chapter in Lack-O'-Recovery Soap...

-The Traveler

On Unfair as it Gets

So, I'm talkin' to one of my homies yesterday in the Drunk Church Diner, and he's trying to convince me to go to the shooting range with him after the meeting, which I was unable to do. I'm not sure he believes me that I'm a crack shot. Or, I was, last time I did target shooting, which admittedly was years ago.

The conversation moves on, and he starts (again) razzing me on compulsions, while I'm eating some scrambled diner eggs - they were kinda greasy, but I was hungry. And so we start talking about compulsions and triggers, and I cite to him an interesting blog bit I read recently written by a therapist who cited Buddhist thought in a book she is reading that the way to deal with a compulsion is to sort of loosen up the mind and "make room" for it, to defuse it in the extra space of the mind. This, in contrast to putting a tight mental grip on it, trying to "control" it. Which, in psychological terms, sort of agrees with the "turning over" concept, and why it works, when all else has failed.

compulsions obstruct the path by monopolizing consciousness. the hypnotic fascination they exert prevents us from attending to anything else. we behave like a rabbit dazzled by the headlights of a car. not only do compulsions make us lose sight of our goal, they inwardly paralyze us. to escape their grip does not entail suppressing them but creating a space in which they are freed to let them go and they are freed to disappear.

The conversation drifts then to the results of compulsions - the self-loathing that happens when we fall prey to our compulsions. Homie makes the point that at that point he is forced to stop, and forgive himself before he can go any further. I'm still thinking about this, and I think he's right. The self-loathing is a result of the guilt of having fallen. Or maybe, of being a compulsive type, to begin with. Hmmmmmmmm.

So this morning I'm cruising blogs, and run across this same therapist's blog on types of guilt.

I've always thought I was a thinker in life, but I have to admit this is one topic I have never thought about - what are the different types of guilt. I'm not sure it had ever entered my mind that there are distinct types of guilt.

She breaks guilt into two types, a guilt for what we've done, and a guilt for what we are. In the former, there are external rules upon which we have infringed, and rules how to remedy the guilt, to assuage it. In the latter, there may be rules against what we are, but there is basically no way to assuage it. You're screwed. The what-you-are-is-unacceptable guilt.

Now, any non-mainstream groupie here knows the latter guilt, if only on a subconscious level. Minorities know this guilt. Gays know this guilt. Women know this guilt. Religious fundamentalists know this guilt. A whole lotta people know this guilt. The question then becomes, how does having this what-you-are-is-unacceptable guilt affect our lives?

The thing is, this type of guilt is patently unfair. So it messes with the psyche in a big way. That you are guilty, for something over which you have no control. For being what you are, how you are made. We expect fairness. We expect a rational world.

How on earth do we deal with this? You can bet I'm going to be reading her blog, tomorrow.

I don't have time to go any further with this thinking, at the moment, but I throw it out there, for you to think about, too. It's unfair.

-The Traveler

On A Tale of Two Balls, Part I

Yesterday in the frigid, blustery winds outside, I was playing ball with the Germans. As is its unfortunate habit, the noggin was churning involuntarily as I did so, pulling in material to ponder, and post upon.

You see, I have two Germans. They are vastly different. One is from working German lines, a stellar pedigree in the Schutzhund world and Police dog world. The second is my "12th Step" German, a rescue puppy I took in "to give back to the breed" after decades of hoity-toity Germans in my household.

W is the patriarch, the true German German. He has nerves of steel - nothing phases him - and he's just a great guy. He's calm, doesn't worry about anything, and sometimes I think if I could turn him in to a human I'd discard the rest of the human race and be satisfied, forever.

A is the American-bred neurotic. Don't EVEN get me started on the difference between what the Germans put out, and what the Americans put out. Yeah, I'd like to put them American "breeders" out, alright. But I digress.

W is a gentleman. He could lord it over A, but finds such attitudes tiresome and not relevant. And so he puts up with a lot of shit from A just because he doesn't care. He does not feel the need to prove anything.

A is powerfully neurotic. So neurotic, in fact, that if you look at him wrong, he pees on the spot. On the carpet, that is. Very annoying. Now grant it, A has never seen a spanking or heard an abusive harsh word from me, and I have had him from 5 months of age.

When I evaluated A as a rescue puppy, I determined that he likely was not abused or neglected. His rescue story is that his owner was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer and had to place the pets due to basically going into terminal treatment, hospice care. There was no whiff in the story or the behavior of A that indicated he had been maltreated.

So I attribute the behaviors of W and A largely to their genetics - their hard wiring. And the differences between them have taught me a lot, the past two years.

Prior to my magnanimity of taking in what I jokingly refer to as my Piece-O-Junk shepherd, all the shepherds I had lived with had come from working German or East German lines. So, while they were all individuals, they were really much more similar than I realized, when it came to working with them. I just needed to tweak an approach to teach them a thing or elicit a behavior I wanted. But in the end, they were similar.

Not so with A. He has proven to be from another planet, and it has taken stubborn me two years and the remark from a casual observer to shake me free from my usual paradigm in order to begin to make progress with him in training.

You see, A is just plain wired differently upstairs than the German Germans. LOL, maybe "wired" isn't the right description, but rather "haywired." And, there ain't NO technique that will make him like them. (Yes, I know that's a double negative when I really need a single negative there, but I'm having a bit of fun here, folks...)

When I play ball with the Germans, it's like playing with two different beasts entirely. One is so like a normie, and one so like an addict. They both have these funny ways of believing things, of making their reality fit their beliefs. But we'll get to that, the next entry or so. Gotta run for now, a busy day ahead...

-The Traveler

On They Know How to Getcha

So today the 2008 onslaught began. Or at least the first wave. The weekly, or perhaps twice weekly, Nashbar catalogue in the mail. Yes, I yam. Yes, I have the calves. Moderate, it's only a 12 mile habit. But hey, it's hilly, where I live.

I even took the opportunity to open the thing and look at the pictures, paying particular attention to the clearance items. Mostly, I just File 13 'em and don't EVEN go there. I know if I look long enough, I'll find something I think I need...

Right after Christmas, at the dawning of a new year, in the dead of winter, after all the holiday gorging, these catalogue folks know we're susceptible. Susceptible to cabin fever. Susceptible to boredom. Susceptible to restlessness. Susceptible to thoughts of springtime dreams, perhaps of touring. I am.

I started training in earnest about two years ago. And in that time, my body has changed. I can feel what's healthy much easier, now. And my body wants it, and is much less interested in junk, and toxins.

It feels awful at first - like you're dying - to get into shape, when you've gone far out of shape. But after you get past that first phase of body-shock, it gets better each day, if you are consistent and keep it up. And one day, you notice it isn't so much work any more, but rather habit.

And the interesting thing about habits is that they calm us. The repetition. The known. The memory.

Recovery is like this.

And it feels good, after you make it a habit. Your body, heart, and mind know it. At least, mine do.

I would wish for you some healthy new habits, in 2008.

No, I didn't order anything. I rarely do, almost never. But I did enjoy all the sleek, colorful pictures, and imagining what it would be like, to buy to my heart's content. Sometimes wanting is a richer experience than having.

- The Traveler

On Discomfort

Human bones have this characteristic that they are living, reactive tissue. We tend to think of them as formed, and static, when in actuality they are ever remodeling themselves.

They display an interesting phenomenon which is that when mechanically stressed, they become stronger. The physical stress of movement causes electic currents within the bone tissue that in turn stimulates the production of more structural bone tissue. It is only by stress that bones become stronger. This is why astronauts get weaker in space - because gravity is not in effect and therefore the bones are not asked to carry weight and stress to the same degree, therefore they weaken.

Each of our recovery paths is like this.

I was in a meeting last night and three words jumped out at me, "Acceptance of Discomfort."

We tend to have ideas, how our recovery should go. How it should progress. What the timing should be for milestones. And we have this fantasy that each day it should get more comfortable. After all, we suffered through a painful bottom, came to understand we had to give up executive control of our lives, so shouldn't it get better, now?

Problem is, we have our own ideas of what "better" and "recovery" should look like. And they don't always mesh with reality, or with what the plan of our HP looks like. We pay lip service to the principle of turning our will and our life over to our God, but most of us lie, and only do it partially, clinging at least to our IDEAS of what should be forthcoming, in our New-Improved-Version-of-Me. Part of that new version is less pain, and more comfort, in our estimation.

But I think God knows that we grow best - are most strengthened - under stress, like bones. And that we may need a good, long time of stress, to get the bones where he wants them - strong enough to be useful for rigorous work. Coming out of our bottoms, most of us are like astronauts returning from a year in space. Not terribly strong.

We, in our impatience, envision an easier way. We think Surrender should be a ticket to comfort, and quickly. That Surrender should open some gate to a magical bypass route around Discomfort. It doesn't occur to us that perhaps our HP will enter us into a lengthy journey of downright suffering AFTER we Surrender, so we grow robust for His work. And clever God, who does a lot of two-for-ones, also wants us to get a good feel for what we missed, avoided, all the time we escaped - how weak and useless those ways really made us.

I'm still thinking about this concept, those three words:

ACCEPT OUR DISCOMFORT

It's one of those things the noggin just isn't sure it wants to incorporate, in our model. That we must do this. Myself included.

Hmmmmmmm.

-The Traveler

On A Heavy Heart

I have a heavy heart, today. Over the past two weeks a lot has happened on the personal side, including a heartbreaking situation wherein I have a ringside seat to someone losing everything they have. They've already lost the big things, the material trappings and such. But now they're faced with the loss of the remnants - those little, last things that are all that's left, when we spin out of control. Housing. Pets. Dignity.

I received an email at 5 am from said person this morning, begging - pleading - for assistance. It hurt, to read. It launched off in me one of those inner battles of selves, one of those go-nowhere, lose-lose dialogues.

The first thing that went through my mind was, "Never do for an addict what they can do for them self," followed by questions of whether I was feeling spiteful, or revengeful.

Said person has been grinding their ass to a pulp, working their sobriety. It's not like they're active in their addictions, which would make the decision cut-and-dried to me. Said person has done everything asked of them, stayed clean, and taken all the shit that comes in early recovery. Said person has turned around and helped others, while in the midst of their own crisis. And I have to feel some compassion, for that.

I considered what assistance I was capable of providing. And then I considered if I should. And from every angle, it was a lose-lose situation. Well, I shouldn't say that. God has a plan for said person and has it apparently in full swing right now, but, damn, it sure is painful to watch in motion, and know I could intervene, to ease the pain.

The question is, should I?

The interesting twist is that said person is my nemesis. There is a hatred, a resentment burning within me that I've spent the past year working my program to deal with. And I will keep going, until the poison is gone. But we have this bizarre sort of relationship, where said person tried to destroy me back then, and I didn't respond as they thought I would, but rather responded with compassion. And so they hang on to me, because I was one of the few back then that had a kind word for them, even in the quagmire of their toxicity, and after their assault.

Said person has told me they hang on to me, because I'm one of the few people who have ever told them they could make it. That I saw through all the carcinogens in their heart, and life, and knew there was a person in there worth the effort of recovery. Believe me, I didn't feel it in my heart when I said it, back then, but I was under strict Executive orders from my HP not to act out my hatred, on another of His. I held my hatred in, and faked it, and will continue to fake it, until I make it to love. I wanted to lash out in hatred, and still do, at times. That's why I work my program so hard, this year, because I know the poison in my heart, and I know I need to rid myself of it, give it over.

Said person had a hard early life. Parents with acute psychotic mental illness and alcoholism. Broken families thrice over on each side, each parent, all re-matches alcoholic and abusive. A bevy of mis-matched, rotating half-siblings and step-parents in and out of their life. Said person endured serial abandonment, physical abuse, and sexual abuse as a child, and later found addictions.

So today, I'm left heavy hearted, trying to decide what to do, and why. If I do not offer assistance, it looks hard-hearted, cold, and revengeful. If I do, it looks manipulative - as though I'll want something in return, my pound of flesh, later. And it would break the cardinal rule against enabling - relieving them of the consequences, but of not only their transgressions, but of their family of origin's.

Grey.

I've spent the day trying to turn it over, asking God what to do. I still don't know.

And so I write about it. And after that, I will listen, carefully, to my HP.

I know God wants me to feel compassion. I'm just not sure what He wants me to do about it.

-The Traveler

On Sometimes, I Fall in Love...

OK, so that's hyperbole, but the point is that when I run across something with what I think has enduring value, I want to program it into my brain to stay. And often that means putting it here in my blog, where I put stuff to come back later and re-ponder it. That's how I personally use my blog, as a filing cabinet of stuff to think about, or stuff I've thought about.

I ran across this piece the other day (link here to source, text below between the asterisks):

(I switched the order of #9 and #10 because Blogger was messing up the formatting when I tried to put the quiz in the middle of ten points.)

While this was written for alcoholism, it applies to any defect via compulsion (a.k.a. addiction).


*******************

10 Truths I Have Learned About Recovery and this Disease of Addiction

I have been around the program for a few 24 hrs and there are some undeniable truths about this disease and recovery that I did not want to accept when I first came around, although I heard it at almost every meeting in some form. Maybe they can help someone.

1. You will not quit until you have had enough. This one sounds so harsh, but like the book states "It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness" I know for this alcoholic it took every treatment center, hospital bed, DUI, pint of blood I threw up, etc to earn my plastic chair.
2. The booze\drugs are not the real problem. No one who has any respect for themselves pounds poisonous chemicals into their body until they slip into oblivion. The booze\drugs were the solution, at least for a while. Booze\drugs could help us escape our miserable existence filled with unhappiness, all derived due to selfishness and self-centeredness.
3. The same man\woman will drink again. If putting down the booze was enough, there would be no need for the 12 steps, meetings, sponsors, or a big book. It is like a knocking rod in your engine. A can of STP oil treatment will quiet the knock for a week or so, but the rod is still bent. A spiritual awakening is required to fix the real problem.
4. No human power could have relieved my alcoholism. Lord knows everyone tried. Judges, lawyers, girlfriends, etc. I have spent my life placing dependence on other people. But because they are human, they will always fail us, just like we failed them. This is where a power greater than myself is required.
5. This is an inside problem with no outside solution. I have always thought, if just had the right girlfriend, band, job, income, blah, blah, then I would not need to drink. I was trying to fill inside holes with outside things. Healing starts on the inside when we work steps two and three. There is a sufficient substitute. It is the fellowship.
6. I am powerless over alcohol, and pornography, and Ben and Jerry’s, and caffeine, etc. My disease changes clothes all the time. The good news is that I recognize it. Look, if it feels good, taste good, looks good, I want more of it. Moderation is not in my vocabulary. But I have tools today that I can use. Sponsor, prayer, meetings, talking to another alcoholic.
7. My life is unmanageable. It does not say my hair is unmanageable, or my checkbook is unmanageable. My life in unmanageable. This means everything. I finally got the guts to fire myself from management and made sure I was marked "no re-hire!" This was really tough to accept. I am so damn self sufficient, enough to get me killed.
8. It is not the caboose on the train that kills you. The craziest thing I have ever done was done sober, and that was to pick up the first one. After the first one, it is two, three, and the next thing you know ol' Jed's a millionaire. It is alcoholism, not alcoholwasm.
9. You must give it away to keep it. Huh? I hated these little quips, like surrender to win!. Arggg. But this is one of the greatest gifts of the spiritual awakening. When I work with other alcoholics, I feel whole, useful, and like I am doing God's work. It is indescribable. When I first heard this I said "hooey"! Man was I wrong.
10. I cannot think myself out of this disease. It says this many times in the big book.

My sponsor gave me a test. It goes like this:

Self knowledge avails me:

A). Everything I have ever wanted.

B). Half the s#it I needed.

C). Jack s*it.

Being too smart for this program will get you killed.

*****************

Sometimes, I just appreciate other people's perspectives, and like to ponder them instead of the stuff in my own head. I think the wisdom of others is the Spiritual Awakening of Step 12 (or, that happens, so we get to Step 12), i.e., the miracle of That Which Would Not Happen Apart From a Higher Power's Influence - to hear stuff like this come forth. OK, let's split that miracle out. That it came forth, from an addict. And, that I heard it. Two-part miracle. God's a funny, clever guy, good at leveraging. LOL!

My personal favorites from this:

• The booze\drugs are not the real problem.
• This is an inside problem with no outside solution.
• My disease changes clothes all the time.
• The craziest thing I have ever done was done sober, and that was to pick up the first one.
• I finally got the guts to fire myself from management...

What strikes you, from this? Or, what would your list be?

-The Traveler

On Fun with Words: a New Year's Poem of Sorts

Stinkin' Thinkin',

Thinkin' Drinkin',

Brinkin',

Drinkin',

Lincoln,

Delinquen',

Blinkin'...

Sinkin'...

Clinkin'.

Drinking and driving is deadly.

Sober wishes for you

this New Year.

-The Traveler

On A Mind-Fuck, and Epiphany - Part III, Conclusion

And now, the epiphany for me, the Holy Grail I never understood in this manner, before.

Those with Attention Deficit Disorder need not apply, today - this is long, and dense.

Part I: ...We must get to our elemental state, broken to pieces, before we can Surrender, because, basically, Surrender is the LAST thing we are willing to do.

Part II: ...And each Surrender is a loss, and each loss must be processed through grief, and then we replace the dysfunctional with the functional. This is the real work of recovery - (both in Stage I and Stage II recovery - read on).

Part III, The Conclusion: Recovery results from, and results in, the Search for Authentic Emotional Intimacy. We screw up our search for intimacy by diversionary means - addictions, compulsions, avoidance, and dysfunctional behaviors that we evolved to use to protect our self. This diversionary pathway results in a bottom that leads us to recovery. Recovery puts us on the correct pathway, to emotional intimacy.

For me, the losses of Surrender have varying degrees of difficulty, as for anyone. And I can give up 85%, or 99%. Or 99.99%. For any Surrender, for me, I give up a big chunk up front, in the initial Surrender of that item. And as I practice life Without, I give up more, but never the entire.

There is always residual, that hair-like thread to which I cling, and that I need to feel. I taper myself off (or, rather, my HP tapers me off as I relinquish more), until the very thread I still hold I cannot feel, but know it's there. And at some point, God performs a miracle, and the thread is gone, and I stop feeling for it. It's a long process for me, each time.

Perhaps there are people out there that can truly Surrender 100% at once, but I rather doubt it. I think the percentage they withhold, but claim they have surrendered, is their denial. I liken it to total belief in God. I just have a hard time believing anyone can be at 100%. I think in both cases people are inherently partially disposed, and cannot be completely disposed. It's the human condition. It's part of the definitions. In Surrender, we give up what we can, and it's never all. In Faith, we believe what we can, and it's never complete. It just is, and it's fluid, and it's another of those areas I don't know, or understand, and have come to stop waiting for that day to happen.

But all these Surrenders seem to funnel, for me. And by that, I mean that they all seem to converge together, that there seems to be a central desire driving my life, that all these things to which I cling touch, even if tangentially. I feel like I'm getting wisps of clarity, that it is just coming clear to me.

When I look back to my catastrophic loss, I dissect it and ask myself what are the elements of that loss, such that it was so incapacitating? Just exactly what WAS the loss, what was it about it that was so central to my existence? To what do I clutch so tightly, such that Surrender is killing me?

And I think I'm beginning to understand, now. The Holy Grail I had always loosely termed as that solution that quells the existential hole we all feel, that hole that makes us need to receive comfort, and feel joy. A 6-month sober speaker put it so well in the Drunk Church Diner, yesterday, "I just felt like I was dying, inside... even though on the outside the trappings looked OK, there was this hole in me..."

I had chased a certain pathway, utterly convinced it was the way to get there. And in a horrifying way, it got me awfully close. It got me to the place where I was completely convinced I was on the way. It all seemed right, and real, but I had no concept at the time that I was staring at the edge of the abyss, not the threshold to the Promised Land.

Until the bottom fell out, and I was left in the dissipating mirage.

I took that last step, thinking I was crossing toward - entering into - the portal to the Promised Land, only to find myself hurling into the abyss. I was ever so fortunate that my HP saw fit to lasso me in a noose, yanking my head and leaving me swinging, over the edge, asphyxiating.

But hanging from God's noose is different than free fall into the abyss. I was able to enter recovery, and get help, and get hauled back up from the edge. I was severely damaged and incapacitated, but alive, and not lost to the abyss.

I had to go there, over that edge, in order to see the right pathway, and let go of my false reality. And I thank God, for that noose, today, the one that nearly snapped my neck, and gave me rope burns, and left me seizing from anoxia to the brain. I would rather have seizures, uncontrolled drooling, tics, and slurred speech - hoping them to heal - than to be in eternal free fall into the abyss.

It turned out it had all been an illusion. And smart ol' me, I had taken it in, built it into my reality, into that most vulnerable core center of myself. I had made room, rearranged, my innermost self to host this "reality" that was in actuality a fantasy, and when it shattered it damn near took me with it. It's taken a year, now, to put the pieces in any kind of order, but they are finally making sense.

The journey for me is the search for authentic emotional intimacy. And, it's the same journey for all you out there, eventually. We humans are hard-wired with this need, the desire to sync up with another person and fall into a comfort net of interdigitating lives and souls. In the end, we seek the comfort of intimacy, to assuage our instinctive alone-ness.

The problem then is, that we are each cripples, in this journey. We're fucked, from the get-go, incarcerated in the thought patterns, behaviors, and fears of the needs of our inner child that were damaged and traumatized and neglected in our formative selves.

But for myself, the desire for authentic emotional intimacy is there, and very real. It's ever so much more powerful than a substance, or compulsion EVER was, and, in the end, it was this very need that drove me to them, anyway. I went to them because I wanted to get away from that existential hole, and I didn't yet know where to go. So I went away. But recovery took those diversions - those escapes - away, and has brought me to the place where I see where I want to go, and has shown me my pathway to get there.

In the time since I started this epiphany series, I have run across literature that finally puts my journey into a framework of words:

Stage II recovery. Earnie Larsen. And he beautifully goes on to investigate my journey, and yours, in his follow-up work, Stage II Relationships.

(I'm sure I'm gonna hear from some of you that the 12 Steps are the Be-All, End-All, All-All, but I'd respond to that that SOME 12-Steppers have the intuitive pathway into Stage II stuff built into their program if they have excellent people around them, but a lot of them get stuck a few years out, wondering if this is all there is, still mired in essentially dysfunctional thinking and behavior patterns and still emotionally stiff and crippled and defended. The 12-Steps are good mechanically, but can lack guidance psychologically and emotionally. 12-Steps can help us fix our behaviors, but in my mind Stage II recovery helps us fix what DRIVES the behaviors. I say don't get stuck in dogma, and keep looking until you find something that works and is functional.)

The rest of this post won't make much sense, until you've read the books and pondered them a while. But this isn't a plug for them; it's only my description of my journey. Do what you want. I'm writing to myself, here, for when I come back and read this in the future, and see where I've managed to get myself, with the help of my HP, down the road.

These are tiny, thin, little books of deceptively profound content. You will either get it, or it will fly right over your head. As with many things, they are only sketches of a message, and the rest is left to you, to work out the details. But I'm excited to have found them, because they put into a word framework my personal journey, and goals. I want rid of the glass wall. And I am willing to work through the paradox. I am willing to do whatever it takes. I am willing to engage in civil war with my Inner Guardian, as Larsen puts it.

The paradox being that in order to achieve intimacy, we first have to develop ourselves by peeling back our defenses, building a foundation of mental health and self-esteem, and offering our undefended core self to those with which we wish to have an emotionally intimate relationship - lay it out on a platter - exposed, and free for the taking. And I'm not talking the usual share-a-bit-of-yourself and give-hugs-all-around and snuggle-up-to-someone-and-whisper-your-thoughts-in-their-ear kind of "intimacy." I'm talking about the get-out-from-behind-all-those-layers, and meld-souls-in-the-danger-zone type of intimacy, putting yourself on the line and going for it, no holds barred, in a thoughtful, loving way. The ultimate risk.

The paradigm of seeking emotional intimacy outside ourselves (by finding our "soul-mate") is all wrong. We don't "find" intimacy; we make it, by our strength and open vulnerability enabling it in others. It's a mind-fuck, to comprehend this. For me, and I suspect most people. Because I just want to go out there and look until I find my perfect soul-mate - who will save me, comfort me, protect me, cherish me, envelop me, and gently offer custodianship of my soul so I don't have to worry about protecting it, anymore. So the fantasy goes.

And then, on top of it, it's rather confusing and counter-intuitive when the methodology in Stage II recovery is the polar opposite of that used in Stage I recovery.

In Stage I recovery, where we incapacitate the bondage of addiction, we must essentially be abandoned by enablers, left to fall apart, until our pieces are too small to function, and we must then get out of ourselves, and lay ourselves out to others, become enmeshed in a network, to reconstruct our daily routines to exclude the addictive behaviors.

In Stage II recovery - the reconstruction of our dysfunctional selves and preparation for intimacy - this must be done deeply within ourselves, by ourselves, from ourselves. And the great paradox here is that in order to achieve that intimacy, WE must become the greatest enabler, of the other person with whom we wish to become intimate. It is our role to enable their pathway to intimacy with us - after we have built ourselves, fashioned our cores, RE-fashioned our cores to be self-sufficient, in early Stage II recovery. (We are enabling their capacity for intimacy by leading by example and providing a comforting zone, by giving them the intimacy we want them to return; I'm not talking about enabling our or their addiction. I'm also not talking about being a Pollyanna doormat, either - this takes two, to work.)

But in both Stage I and Stage II, the ENDPOINT is the same: we must - after rebuilding our own structure to a state of self-sufficient strength (via surrender to our HP) - give away, in order to feed ourselves and maintain ourselves. The only way to have it, is to give it away. And the quality of job that we do in giving determines the quality we are able to have, in our own lives.

I consider this advanced - graduate - level stuff in the path of recovery. Most will not make it this far, but rather will get stalled at some intermediate point, stuck in dysfunction. Many who reach a sober state will then get stuck in limited, defended relationship patterns. Perhaps I will, too. But, I am damned determined, when I finally formulate a goal. I am not timid to do whatever it takes, to get to a place I want to be.

And that place I want, my path of Stage II recovery, is to re-engineer my self to be that person I need to be, in order to get to intimacy. Authentic intimacy, not faux or image intimacy. I have already begun to identify my formative factors and defensive characteristics that will have to be undone, and redone. And risks I will have to take, in exposing myself in order to grow.

Of course, the whole process fascinates a fear-leaning geek-type like myself. It's an amalgam of faith, masochism, psychiatry, 12-stepping, and good ol' fashioned grit to find my courage, to get there. This will be one of those spiritual awakening things, a goal accomplished via HP miracle - something that will not happen in and of myself, alone.

Now, on a side note, lest you think I've lived my adult life an isolated, brooding, withdrawn wallflower, you'd be mistaken. My writing is controlled, and distant. I don't try to make an illusion of real life in written form.

This is a virtual persona, you get, and it's what you get from anyone, in writing, a persona in written form. That you or a writer ever think otherwise is only delusion. If you walked into a room of people, I doubt you'd be able to pick me out. Writing is where I vent my serious persona, the place I take all my tedious thoughts that people don't really have patience for in f2f conversations.

I've had a full and blessed life of relationships - long term, stable, healthy, loving ones. I've had the dysfunctional ones, too, but mostly in those relationships I had no option to choose. Unlike many in recovery, I don't have a trail of failures and disasters in the relationship arena. What I do have is lofty goals. I want the apex, of relationships. I want that deeper level of intimacy, in any relationship in which I could achieve it.

I've always felt there's more out there, and wanted it: that gut-wrenching level of intimacy we almost dare not want because the entry fee is baring our soul in its most vulnerable state. I'm not talking about some romantic fantasy state; I'm talking about a very real, down-to-earth, deeply rooted kind of relationship, one that is the bulwark in the storm, quietly ballasted with depth. Not the whirlwind pseudo-intimacy that is the storm.

It's an instinct within me, that there's a whole other level of connecting, with people, that we could achieve, if only we were enlightened enough, and did the right work, and had the courage. I know it's out there, and I want it, with a fire in my belly.

And it's where I'm headed, in 2008.

-The Traveler

P.S. - I think I'm going to do a post on the intimacy hierarchy as I experience it, sort of a Maslow's Triangle for intimacy. Ran across some good material on what would be mine, and I think that, actually, emotional intimacy isn't the pinnacle, but rather spiritual intimacy is. I'm just not that spiritually evolved, yet, to feel this, I think. But, hey, it's progress not perfection, and I have a lot of re-engineering to do just to work on the emotional intimacy level. I just completely always sucked at that answer, "everything amounts to your relationship with God, and if something's not perfect, just pray more..." I'll try to keep an open mind...

I think the second mind-fuck just might turn out to be that you cannot achieve emotional intimacy with another person until you both sync in spiritually, first, and the focus is on the HP, together, rather than on each other. In other words, to get the closest to another person, you have to channel it spiritually, not person-to-person. That, again, we are operating from the wrong paradigm, laboring to get close to another person, by focusing on them, when the real deal is that we have to focus on our HP, who will somehow put us, connect us, more intimately with them. Counter-intuitive, for me, at least, again. Stay tuned.

HQFT: Highlighted Quote For Thought

"And the truth shall set you free,

but first it will tick you off."

(source unknown)

-The Traveler

Next Up: A Mind-Fuck and Epiphany, the Conclusion

I'm off a few days, to finish my thinking

on the conclusion of this series,

to let it ripen in the vault.

Part I.

Part II.

On This Day

...I'm grateful.

I feel it would be over-the-top to write much,
and claim all sorts of flowery platitudes.
That's everywhere, and overdone.

Less is more.

-The Traveler

On Holiday Visits

I ran into Marlboro Man and Coffee Bar Worker yesterday at the Drunk Church Diner.

Coffee Bar Worker had the joy of discovering Marlboro Man's son in a state of OD, a few days ago, convulsing in his own aspirated vomit, crumpled on the floor. Heroin.

Marlboro Man has been pulling his greyed, thinning hair out, trying to figure out how to evict his own son from the farm. It's a complicated scenario, where Marlboro Man's mother holds deed to the farm, but for all intents and purposes the farm belongs to Marlboro Man. Mother is a supreme enabler, and in her mid-eighties, so she tired of enabling Heroin Dude Grandson (who had been living with her) and dumped him out on the farm, on Marlboro Man. Problem is, Heroin Dude has been wreaking havoc on the farm, ever since.

So Heroin Dude did himself in, nearly. They got him to the hospital alive, but in renal failure and with aspiration pneumonia. While he lay in OD, his position apparently compromised the nerves or circulation in one of his legs, and it sustained severe tissue damage. They are contemplating an amputation, but the word is not final.

Marlboro Man shared this in Drunk Church the other day, and lamented that he was unable to tell the cops his son was a dealer, because then they could have had a handle on charges to get him into jail. As it is, they will try to work the possession angle. Marlboro Man doesn't want Heroin Dude

back, and can't figure how to rid himself, other than incarceration.

If he lives.

Happy Holidays, from THE DISEASE.

I shall put in a cheerier entry, later. But this was on my mind, at the moment.

-The Traveler