Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Category: Jamez

  • The New Old Job

    A friend was reading the blog recently and tonight asked if I had gotten a new job in education, he had heard me talk about my job in an insurance agency but didn’t see it anywhere on the blog… I really hadn’t realized that I forgot to write about it. Technically I wrote about interviewing for the new old job back in the post Job Hunting – that’s right I somehow passed their personality test! woo hoo!!!

    The job is at an insurance agency, I wasn’t sure then what that meant but I was pretty sure it was your typical office job. Most of the places you interview at tell you the same things “this is a hard job” “we expect you to show up on time” “we need good workers that follow all the rules” and then make you watch videos from the mid 80s staring all the best shoulder pad clothes a person could hope to see at once… Fortunately I didn’t have to watch any of those videos for this job.

    First let me say I’ve been working in offices for 20 odd years, I’m good at it, people really like me and are amazed at the work I can produce – not trying to pat myself on the back here, that’s what employers have told me. But in all honesty these jobs have bored me – almost every day at those jobs I found I had enough time to do the job adequately in under 5 hours and spend the rest of the day doing whatever I might want to do – Facebook, solitaire and mine craft (back in the early Windows days) or whatever, it wasn’t a challenge at all. What I’ve found at my new job, and I’ve told them – is not having any free time at all, my day is spent getting the work done and as a result my days just fly by. I love that I love that so much. I’m challenged. Now that sounds awful doesn’t it? No time to relax or goof around? Well I still manage to stick my tongue out at my supervisor for no reason, talk to my cube mate about shopping or hear about a coworkers wife. It’s just that the isn’t just entering a bunch of data and waiting for more, or sending out the invoices and then leaving early – my days are full and it’s a good thing. (more…)

  • Programs, Pamphlets and Power

    At a retreat recently a speaker shared something from one of AA’s pamphlets that I either hadn’t heard, forgot about or didn’t sink in when I read it. I loved it when he was saying it and it’s been floating around in my head for a few weeks now. What do you think?

    P-41 A Member’s Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous

    Tonight, if I could find one fault with A.A., it would be that we have not yet begun to tap the potential hidden in the last seven words of the Twelfth Step: “practice these principles in all our affairs.”

    It occurred to me not long ago that whenever I am sitting in an A.A. meeting, I am never aware that I am sitting next to another white man, another Catholic, another American, or a Frenchman, Mexican, Jew, Moslem, or Hindu, black man or brown. I am aware only that I am sitting next to another alcoholic. And it seemed deeply significant to me that this feeling of common humanity had been purchased by me at the cost of considerable pain and suffering.

    Should this hard-won understanding of, and feeling for, others be confined to the meeting halls and members of A.A.? Or does it remain for me to take what I have learned and what I have experienced, not only in A.A., but in every other area and endeavor of my life, to lift up my head, and to assume my rightful place in the family of man? Can I there, in the household of God, know that I am not sitting next to another white man, another Catholic, another American, nor yet a Frenchman, Mexican, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, black man or brown, not even another alcoholic, and can I finally — at long last, please God — come home from all the wars and say in the very depths of my soul, “I am sitting next to another human being”?

    -from the pamphlet A Member’s Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous

    There are days when I think about all AA has done for so many very different people and how amazing the transformations of their lives is. This program of action, to change and help others is really the key to what is wrong every where. Imagine a world where the everyone cared not just for themselves and their pocketbooks but for their common man – instead of reaching out their hand for another dollar for their war-chest they’d offer it to the new man and help pull him up and show him a better way.

    The program of AA has been borrowed and adapted to many different fellowships – Alanon, NA, CA, SA, OA, GA… the list goes on and on. I know handfuls of people who – normal in every  aspect that I can see – who use our steps and traditions to guide their lives, they too say it’s life changing.

    So why aren’t we standing on the rooftops, screaming from the top of our lungs, opening churches and the like?

    In the book the Bridge Across Forever, Richard Bach and his wife get stuck traveling into different realities… in one of those realities they find a mystical book, seemingly dropped from the heavens with all the answers to lifes mysteries. Richard and Leslie want to take that book with them to share with everyone that here is finally the answer, here is something we can all agree upon. But the other Richard from that alternate-reality shows them what would happen if they did. Suddenly we’d have the War of the Book as people who interpreted it one way disagreed with anthers interpretation of it and people would die to see their way was followed.  Like the crusades of our reality the truth would be forced upon people or they’d be killed for not believing.

    That’s what comes to mind when I think about an AA church or of forcing this upon others, it’s not how were supposed to do it. Its about attraction, not promotion… I’ve had many religious folk ask me about prayer, meditation, helping others and resentments – I’m glad I can help, I’m glad someone else helped me to do those very things…. that’s the key, get out of self and help others.

     

  • David

    I found out that my first sponsee, David R, passed away yesterday. David was a real alcoholic, he struggled to find the answer in AA and was the kind of drunk who’d been in treatment centers and involved with the courts countless times. He was, for all intents and purposes, hopeless – that’s the kind of drunk you don’t think is going to make it and then BOOM they get it and their whole life is changed… but that didn’t happen for him. He had brief moments of sobriety when I knew him, and then the crushing fall back into the disease – it was hard to watch for me, probably a lot harder to watch for his family. I feel guilt – maybe I didn’t read him the right part of the book, or show him how good it would be or … I don’t know, a million things, but it’s not about what I did or didn’t do, I tried – I reached out my hand and offered a way out, the same way that was shown to me, that’s all I was bound to do.

    David is the guy I wrote about and got published in the A.A. Grapevine – ( Read story here ). I was working over nights at the Fahrman Center, a treatment center/halfway house, when David called and was suicidal. I talked to him for a good long time and eventually had the police get out there to get him – he was taken to the psychiatric unit at the local hospital, but not before he made me promise to come up and see him there and bring my fellow AA’s with me. That morning, likely before the sun came up I called all the guys on my list and a bunch of us went to see him. That phone call and follow up visits by AAs to him opened up an avenue for that hospital and the District to talk to one another, we started a pager program and started to carry the message to drunks up there – it changed things.

    But David didn’t stay sober, I don’t remember when he got drunk after that – but I know he was sober for a while and he seemed happy. He kept focusing on getting his family back and how he could get sober if he had them, but I knew from the book that wasn’t the case…

    “Let no alcoholic say he cannot recover unless he has his family back. This just isn’t so. In some cases the wife will never come back for one reason or another. Remind the prospect that his recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his relationship with God. We have seen men get well whose families have not returned at all. We have seen others slip when the family came back too soon.” Alcoholics Anonymous, pp 99-100

    He wouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t hear that and he got drunk.

    The last time I saw David he had called me and was really drunk, he was staying at a little motel down the highway and I went to see him. He looked pretty bad, was still drunk as hell and was hard to understand. He started to talk about bad things that had happened to him as a child- but then he just passed out.

    I’d get reports once in a while from friends who work in the Drug and Alcohol treatment field once in a while – and I always hoped he’d show up one day at a meeting I’d get to when I was visiting, but it didn’t happen.

    I’ve cried a bunch of times today – a few times for happy reasons before I heard this news – but mostly for David. I so want to grab a slipping newcomer and just slap him silly

    “Don’t you see, can’t you see this will happen to you to”

    “just do what we’ve asked, and you’ll see, it’ll all get better”

    but I know that won’t work… I used to hear in meetings “You can’t see until you can see and you can’t hear until you can hear” and it’s sadly so true. For some there’s nothing I can do to help them until they’re ready – and some sadly will never be ready.

    I was at my current sponsor Flo’s house when I heard about David today, I was helping him prepare a memorial for his first sponsor who passed a few weeks ago. And it was just the right place to be at the right time – I find it hard to cry in front of people, even my sponsor, and he left the room. Here we were, preparing to honor the man who had reach him only to hear about the loss of a man I couldn’t reach. That’s AA for you, I was where I was supposed to be today.

    The old-timers and the book say that even though David didn’t stay sober, I did and that’s a good thing – that doesn’t make me feel better at all. I want it all, I want David to be next to me at a meeting grinning at newcomers who can’t pronounce anonymity and shaking hands at the door. I want them all to get it and to have a better life and to see how a few simple rules can change the world.

    I believe in Alcoholics Anonymous, because it worked for me when I worked for it – I didn’t get it when I just stayed on the outskirts and watched others participate. When David was participating and shaking hands he seemed happier than I’d seen him before – I saw change in him. But our book says others are likely to see the change in newcomers before they see it in themselves, that may have been the case with David, I’m not sure.

    There is a solution, I’ve found it, it was shown to me by sponsors who had it shown to them by sponsors who had it shown to them by sponsors… it’s been working for over 75 years now. We have a lot of people to try to reach out to, I want to be the helping hand to show them the way out, I want to see them help others and watch a marvelous fellowship grow up about them. I wanted that for David, I want that for all my sponsees – the fellowship I have around me is so vast now, reach across continents, internets and handshakes – I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

    Rest in Peace David

  • The Journey – Bill's Story

    Several weeks had passed since Bill woke in this dimly lit room, the last thing he remembered before awaking here was his typical night at the bar, nothing out of the ordinary, he’d had too much to drink and the bartender cut him off again. He may have even gotten in a fight with Becky, but those memories were sketchy so he wasn’t certain if that was just what he wanted to do or what had actually happened, some nights out drinking his mind did that to him, made it difficult to differentiate between fantasy and reality – it’d been happening more and more. He remembered being on highway 53 on his way to the trailer – but that was it, nothing until he woke up here.

    The room he found himself in was rather large, smelled a bit of something he couldn’t identify, he’d almost gotten used to the smell but sometimes a whiff would just make his eyes water and give him a bit of nausea. There was a bed of some kind that he had sweated and shivered when the nightmares came, a few times he’d pissed the bed during extreme nightmares instead of making it to the corner he’d chosen to use as his restroom when nothing else had been available. Nightmares filled with strange creatures, people from his past whom he’d hurt and a feeling deep down inside that a drink would make it all better, but that drink never came. The nightmares from the war… or operation Enduring Freedom, as they called it, were always there, whether he drank or not, but when the alcohol wasn’t there they were less muted – more real. Memories he never wanted that kept replaying again and again – damn he needed a drink.

    He could hear guttural noises outside his room sometimes, unintelligible muted but barely he could hear them. For days he had pounded on the doors and walls but no one and nothing had answered – he’d given up. “Maybe this was hell,” was a thought that frequently passed through his mind – certainly withdrawal from alcohol had been, but that was days of agony and he was still here alone with no answers.

    When he’d wake up in the mornings he’d find food – nothing he recognized, but food nonetheless. Piles of brown and green that didn’t taste that bad after he finally worked up the courage to try it and always a glass of water. Half way during the day the tray it was on and the glass would just be gone, he always tried to see it happen but one second it was there and the next not so much.

    The noises, the smells and the strange food were enough to make him wonder where he might be – when the whole room would shake violently he started to think he was on a ship of some kind. But why and where he was headed he didn’t know. He always got seasick when he was a kid but wasn’t seeming to now – well, maybe the throwing up after the first few days were, but weeks had passed now and nothing like it used to be.

    Passing the time he’d talk to himself or sing songs he could remember part of the lyrics to – sometimes when he’d sing the noises outside his cell would stop and he’d get quiet and listen to the silence. He’d always imagine his old buddies laughing at the way he sang and begging him not to – maybe they were just beyond the wall about to say this had all been a huge prank, but he couldn’t see the humor in it no matter how he looked at it.

    A few days he screamed, for hours it seemed, until his throat was raw and his voice less than a mouse’s roar. Or cry, the tears would just flow for not knowing which transgression had given him this particular punishment and just how long he’d be here… forever it was beginning to seem.

    Through the screams, yells, tears and pounding on walls something’s remained the same – his food and water would arrive and disappear just as mysteriously each day and the room shaking violently enough to knock him to the floor sometimes and of course he was still there, that was the same.

    One day the entire room started vibrating, just a little at first and then more and more. He was frightened, the vibrations kept getting more and more intense – his bed, the floor, the walls – everything was shaking and a loud hum that grew louder and louder. He heard guttural noises outside his room and they were louder than normal but unintelligible as always. He thought that this must be the end of it all, whatever this had been now he was finally going to rest… but rest in peace. Just when he thought the vibrations and humming might tear him apart – it stopped. There was a peaceful nothingness, a feeling that everything was going to be ok crept over him suddenly, maybe I am getting into heaven after all – he thought…

    Thunk

    Or maybe not, he thought… just like that it seemed his room had returned to normal and the despair washed over him again. He just collapsed on his bunk, closed his eyes and hoped to die in his sleep.

    When he woke the next morning he was reluctant to open his eyes again, tired of the same walls that were there every day and tired of the disturbing ramblings of his own mind. As he took a deep breath and prepared to sit up – he coughed and hacked and his eyes flew open – that smell he thought he’d gotten used to was somehow much more intense and he found himself in a coughing fit, bent over hand to mouth coughing away. It took his brain a few seconds to realize something else was different, and when he looked up he didn’t know what to think.

    One of the strange creatures from his nightmarish detox dreams was there in the room with him – it seemed real. He scanned his memory to see if he’d somehow gotten drunk or if maybe the whole experience had been a hellish nightmare from the detox dream.

    The creature wasn’t moving… well not towards or away from him anyway, it was just there – he could see minor movements near it’s grayish head, what must be eyes looking here or there about him and openings he couldn’t imagine the purpose of. He looked at it for a minute, still trying to determine if this was indeed the nightmare or if something else, more sinister perhaps was going on. Perhaps this was hell after all, and this was one of the many demons employed there.

    The alien demon thing seemed to brighten, it’s entire body changed to a lighter shade of brown and Bill’s eyes opened a bit wider, that’s interesting. He made a decision, if this is another hallucination I’m going with it wherever it may lead.

    It swept out a tentacle from it’s left side and motioned towards a door.

    Holy shit! Bill thought, a door; instincts took over – he broke for it. He ran out that door and to the left and stopped dead in his tracks. In front of him was a vast array of other… creatures; different sizes, shapes… his surroundings truly alien, odd noises, lights and fear overtook him. Where do you run when all around you is chaos and the stuff of fevered dreams. He dropped to the ground… just sat there astounded at the site before him. A few things seemed to stop and look at him, but he couldn’t be sure.

    There was a tapping on his shoulder and he flinched at the tentacle he saw there. When he looked up he saw the same alien he had woken up to, a different shade of gray now, almost a charcoal… he again motioned with his tentacle, but this time in the direction opposite to where Bill was looking. He stood shakily, tentacles seemed to help steady him then guide him – let them lead Bill thought. Certain he was about to be probed, Bill started crying openly… the thing next to him shimmered and changed color again, this time to a muted red.

    Hours passed, Bill had been sitting in a busy area, fear all encompassing as the different creatures bustled around. It almost seemed like a busy office, conversations between individuals and movements around him just made him think that’s what it was. But he just sat there, no one tried to communicate with him and he was starting to get hungry, what he wouldn’t give to be back in his cell knowing soon piles of green and brown would soon appear. If he were home after an experience like this he’d drink himself into unconsciousness… yeah, drink would make it all better, a small part of him hoped this was all some nightmare, but he was starting to know it wasn’t.

    Looking around the room he was in he tried to determine how many different types of creatures there were… about a few handfuls of the type of creature that brought him here were visible, but at this point he couldn’t find the one that had… if he or it was even here anymore. There were some short green rolling blobs that seemed to interact with others, maybe a dozen or more – Bill wasn’t sure if they were alive or come contraption, seemed they interacted briefly with all the others but if there was communication he couldn’t determine it. Odd looking was what they all seemed to be, surely something that looked closer to human had to be here somewhere, but everywhere he looked it was just strange and stranger.

    The focusing on those around him was disturbing, he decided to look at what kind of room he was in, maybe a photo or sign of some kind he cold recognize or help him to find a way to communicate… he was mostly sure he wanted to communicate, to at least find out where he was and maybe see if he could get home.

    The walls were mostly bare, here and there were spaced windows and when he looked out he could see the complete alien landscape, buildings and creatures walking around. He was probably safer in here, a contained amount of weird was safer than a vast unknown. One wall had something similar to a bulletin board, Bill rose and walked over toward it – no one seemed to notice him these last few hours and they didn’t seem to care what he was doing. At the board he slowly looked at the alien languages and photos and nothing seemed to strike him as familiar at all except a triangle inside a circle. At least basic shapes were the same.. well except bodies.

    tricircle

    A new tap on his shoulder made him jump, he turned to see a new hulking figure towering over him, it grunted at him and motioned for Bill to follow. Looking around, no one seemed to be paying any attention to either of them so Bill thought “what the hell, it can’t get any worse” and followed the hulking figure out the door and into the alien world.

  • Step 5 – Exact Nature of My Wrongs

    I shared my inventory with my sponsor tonight – I think this is the fourth time I’ve done a 5th step in 20 years. I was raised in AA that, or at least I heard, we do one 4th step and any other inventory is covered in step 10 – this could bring about a ton of debate about what’s right or what’s wrong, suffice to say I can’t go back and change any of that, and it worked for me…. until it didn’t.

    The first time was at RTC, a treatment center in LaCrosse WI. They had me fill out some booklet of questions about the worst things I had done or something along those lines, I didn’t really understand it and when it was time to share (Step 5) the religious minister/priest whatever they had come listen to it with me wasn’t all that engaged with me. He said when I was done “Is that it? Do you feel better now?” and that was my 5th step. I didn’t feel better, was still pretty confused and wasn’t at all comfortable with the robe wearing guy. (more…)

  • One Year Later

    A year ago tomorrow I moved to Phoenix from Washington DC., can’t believe it’s been a year already, time just seems to have flown by.

    I feel at home here… it’s not the weather… ok, it’s partly the weather…  They turned on the AC in my apartment complex this week and just a week or so ago turned off the heat as it was too hot … yeah, I don’t miss winter in DC or WI. IMG_3331 (more…)

  • The Fire

    On fire with AA.

    I’ve said that about people before, even had it said of me before – usually it’s when they or I am expressing so much gratitude and love for the program that it’s almost too much … like an over sugary dessert, yes it’s sweet but it’s a bit too much almost evangelical. But since the beginning, and I’m taking the liberty of speaking for others here as well (I’ll ask for forgiveness later), there has been some kind of burning since I got to AA.

    At first there was just the spark, a spark of hope – the flimsy reed, that gave us a light to walk towards. “Maybe this AA thing can work for me too”

    that spark ignites the first flames in AA (No, we’re not speaking specifically of gay men… but maybe them too) – we get a sponsor, we start participating in the meeting and maybe start relating to others experience.

    Our sponsors and our group leaders feed that small fire, they put logs and kindling on it – they give us commitments to group and we soon have a hearth, a  place where our fire usually burns – a home if you will.

    When we finally get it, when the solution encompasses us we burn brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter and attract others, they see this roaring fire and are drawn to it, they want the warmth and comfort that we have created.

    Once in a while someone will come along with a poker (mmmmm) and stoke the fire, sending sparks here and there and igniting other flames, a torch has been passed to another who will build their own hearth.

    Yet sometimes we can forget to feed the fire, we can forget to participate and keep it going – maybe think the fire will sustain itself – we aren’t sharing anymore, its ours we want to just sit there in the warmth and be comfortable. No logs and the fire starts to die down. 

    It’s still comforting there, people see the flame and want it, it’s pretty, comforting, attractive – but its slowly becoming smaller and dimmer.

    When the wood is burned up and the red glow of the embers is still there, we can still get a little warmth, we can still see the faint glow of hope – but to share it we really need to stoke the fire – we have to have participation and share our fire to keep it strong.

    I don’t think there are things that can douse an AA flame once its been started – you hear countless people who go out come back and say they remembered the hope they had found in AA and longed for it. I hope you keep your flames bright and comfortable today – and maybe share a spark.

  • Belated Celebration and Update

    Click this link up here Belated Celebration and Update.

    My friend’s chemo is finally over – but they still have the medical bills to pay. Donations have helped them immensely and more donations would help right now – If I had more to give I would and I’d do the same for any of my friends (and on occasion, strangers – if they’re cute enough… no cute doesn’t matter, well… maybe a little)

    Please help my friend Jana and her husband Cameron… if the situation were reversed they’d help you – that’s part of why they’re my friends (big hearts).

  • Very Busy

    I’m reluctant to ever say:

    I’m Happy!

    even if it’s kind of how I feel… I’m a doomsayer you know, predict the end times for myself time and again, usually just in my brain (I wouldn’t want others to worry) and I know if I were to state such a thing a meteor would be plucked from its course and given a trajectory of my destination within the next day or so… so instead, lets just say:

    I’m very busy.

    much safer that way for all of us… depending on the size of the meteor it could have been catastrophic to a lot more people and then I’d feel guilty. My brain is a complicated place, I shouldn’t go in there alone.

    (more…)

  • Sports

    I’ve never been a big fan of sports – I do though enjoy cheering against fanatics teams (Green Bay Packers and Washington Redskins for example) just to annoy the fans. The olympics don’t really ignite any flames for me, I think about all the money spent, the hours kids/young adults spend getting ready for their one chance to win a gold – a silver, a bronze just won’t do, it has to be gold… and if they fail the first time out the chances of a second win 4 years later is harder… unless you’re a doping cyclist or on an NBA super team.

    So how i ended up being the water boy for the girls high school basketball team in Whitehall eludes me.

    Ms Matchey (I think was her name), was the assistant coach and asked me and for some reason I said yes… me, the loner stoner, hanger-headed outcast participating in sports (not actively mind you, just on the sidelines). I filled their water bottles, cheered their points, watched the games with mild curiosity and actually began to understand it. These girls were very good, they were fast, strong and could make a basket, nothing I could claim myself. I was there for practices, games, and in the locker room (though this did nothing for me some people were jealous) they were always clothed when I was there. I’d pick up the wet towels, I’d make sure there were new towels… basketball

    (more…)