Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Category: Jamezrant

  • Obsess Much?

    I shake hands at meetings. This isn’t really news to anyone who knows me in meetings – I’ve been doing it a long time. Lots of people look forward to shaking my hand too (or so I tell myself).

    Some folks don’t shake my hand and insist on a hug – makes the meeting feel incomplete to me, I’m considering telling them – “no hand shake, then no hug”. It’s all about me you know… usually. A former Green Bay Packer sometimes is at the meeting and insists on the hugs… but he’ll have to be told too.

    Tonight a regular member of the home group came in and I saw him coming and couldn’t recall his name. See him every week, shake his hand every week, sometimes we even hug (after the handshake, so you know I actually like the guy) but his name escaped me. (more…)

  • 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

  • When I End Up in Prison

    When I start to plan on what I will do when I end up in prison I think on it fondly… maybe I’d get solitary confinement, think of all the quiet time I’d have to read books I’ve been meaning to read, just lie there on a cot and read book after book after book… especially in solitary – all that aloneness, singing songs off key, talking to myself about the secrets of the universe….

    and then I remember I don’t really do things that are likely to get me in prison… so it doesn’t matter. That quiet alone time with some big muscle daddy in our own cell, so much easier to meet that kind of guy in prison rather than bars and night clubs… yeah, that’s not going to happen, I stay out of trouble now.

    then I think, what if I ended up in witness protection program, that could happen… anyone can witness something dangerous just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time… a strange town working some job I never applied for and having to meet new people and make an entire new life… that sounds awful and wonderful at the same time, they’d probably try to get me to act differently and keep a low profile …

    But what about AA? could I still go to AA meetings? how do you work an honest program living a lie…can you really trust your sponsor and do a fearless and thorough inventory? Maybe he’s a plant put there by the Feds to test me or working with the mob out to kill me… round ups and conferences would definitely be off the table, I’d be trapped in some small town with crappy AA BAH! I couldn’t do it… just shoot me already!

    I’m probably better off here, working a job I like most of the time… going to AA meetings I love and keeping my loved ones foremost in my mind… yeah, I’ll do that for the rest of the day…

    Tomorrow though, maybe I’ll get abducted by aliens… now that would be fun!

  • 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…)

  • 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…)

  • Pondering in the Dark

    The kiss was electric, sounds cliche I know, but it was that kiss that changed it all. It was our first date and I couldn’t tell if he liked me at all, I decided to take a chance and ask for a kiss. He turned, grabbed a hold of me and gave me one of the best kisses I’d ever had – I felt good from my head to my toes and I wanted more, all of his kisses were like that.  As we were moving forward with the wedding plans, because I said yes, a thought occurred that disturbed me:

    I have to care about being alive and now I have to try to stay alive longer.

    That was the lingering thought during the rest of the engagement – the kiss was electric, the sex ok… but having someone to live for… not something I had thought about, it was an inconvenience. That isn’t to say that I don’t have other people in my life, but none of them need me to stick around. When you commit to someone else “for life”, til death do us part and all that jazz… then you should actually try to be there with them as long as you can.

    “Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ or ‘how very perceptive’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.”  The character “Rose Walker” in The Sandman #65

    So, kind of happy that that all didn’t work out. I figure 15 more years is all I really want (I don’t think want is the right word).

    I was re-reading the Harry Potter series over the holiday break and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was obsessed with living forever and I just can’t relate… after a while you’ve done everything you really wanted to do, what the hell would you stick around for? It’s different if you have kids or that other person I suppose, then you’re rather obligated to be there as long as you can. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had none of that, he had worshipers and fear but why would that be worth sticking around for, I think it would get boring.

    I’m not seeking death, not yet anyway (give me 15 years), and this isn’t a “cry for help” it’s just casual observations from my mind. The only thing that seems really suicidal in my own behavior lately has been a weird craving to buy a pack of cigarettes – WTF is that about? no clue

    “Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.”
    ― Neil Gaiman

    Then if you bring religions into it and we talk about afterlife or reincarnation – I just can’t grasp why that would be something you’d want. Here I am, having lived a life to it’s fullest (or as full as I cared to muster), then I’m dead and wait… what? now I have to sit around on a cloud for eternity (oh wait I’m gay… burn in hell for eternity). What’s appealing about that. They say things like “spend eternity with the ones you love”….. Seriously, I love my family and friends, but I can only take so much of them before I need to get away… if you want to give me something to look forward to in an afterlife, give it some rocking special effects or great music or excitement… you know, the stuff I was supposed to be searching for and enjoying in life. And reincarnation… why would I want to do it again? Hell no.

    “You get what anybody gets – you get a lifetime.”
    ― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

    In this life I’ve done all those things I’ve wanted to do, someone asked me once “Like what?” I’ve sung at the Kennedy Center, had a story or two published, loved someone so much it hurts, escaped the cold winters of WI, made amends for the mistakes in my past and learned to be myself.

    I think that’s enough.

  • Review, Renew, and then Redo

    Last year was full of change.

    Yeah, it was an interesting year. I look back and think that I am really glad that I moved to Phoenix. Do I miss my friends and my cat in DC? Yes, but I like my new friends here and Gary send me pictures of my cat, I know she’s ok.

    I had my first summer here and the temperatures got pretty hot as far as I was concerned it was 118 on June 29th and that was pretty uncomfortable, but I really didn’t mind it until it surpassed 115. The coldest day that we had that I was here was of course my birthday, December 6th, and it was 37 degrees… I was miserable anyway so didn’t notice to much. I didn’t like the few days that were humid at all, the dry heat is really what makes this place so nice for me.

    Besides the weather here, which I really love, what I like most about Phoenix is the A.A. There are so many more options here than there were in DC and they are a lot less politically correct than DC. Are they big book thumping, tradition defending meetings? well not yet, but they are a refreshing change to what I found in DC.

    As I reflect on what happened in the last year and start to look forward to the New Year, I find that I want many of the same things that I had happen to me in 2013. I’m hopeful that this is going to be a better year and full of change!

    Happy New Year to you!

     

  • New Years Resolutions – Quitting Smoking

    It’s really kind of hard to believe, but I quit smoking almost 9 years ago (Jan 1, 2005). It was very cliche, I did it as a New Year’s Resolution…. and I had tried countless other times to quit and not one of them took.

    I think at the time the main concern was how expensive they were getting – I think they were a little over $4 at the time and I kept thinking it was going to to up and up (and it sure has). I had decided enough was enough (but I always thought that before quitting) and I meant it (like always) so I went out and bought Nicorette gum, the lozenge, and the Patch, I even ask my doctor for a Wellbutrin prescription. An extra step I had taped all over my bedroom and bathroom “You Can Quit Smoking” so I’d see it constantly. I also purchased a hypnosis/positive thinking tape (yes, cassette tape) that I played each night before I went to bed.

    As the New Year approached I kept doubting I could do it, I wondered why I even bothered. Hadn’t countless attempts before failed at getting me to quit? Yes, but I was determined this time (like always).

    I didn’t use the gum that day, the lozenge or the patch… I just stopped and gritted my teeth through it. The first day seemed so hard, the habits of when I’d light up were there with me – when I’d step outside, after eating, after sex, during commercials… I was always smoking it seemed and the first day was so hard to get out of that expectation.

    I was grumpy for probably a month, but I had a lot of support of friends and coworkers who kept on encouraging me… before I knew it I no longer had the cravings or the desire to have one at all.

    There was an immediate downside – everything smelled – whether good or bad I could smell all kinds of things I hadn’t before – car exhaust, bad breath, good breath, perfumes… and most of all smokers! Ugh, why didn’t anyone tell me how awful I smelled and how my breath was rancid like that? Probably because I hung out with other smokers, it became evident to me why some guys wouldn’t date a smoker and now I won’t date one.

    There are still days when I consider a cigarette – after a really good meal, on rainy fall days, during movies with lots of smoking.. but I resist and remember how expensive it is (holy crap how can you afford that?) and how bad people smell.

    I tried to quit a million times, I didn’t think this time would work either – but it did. Don’t give up, keep trying if you’re trying and eventually you’ll make it. I think after the first few months you’ll be happier, I know I am.

  • AA's 6th Tradition and the Pink Can

    AA’s sixth tradition reads as follows:

    “6. An A.A. Group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.” (short or regular form)

    “6. Problems of money, property, and authority may easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim. We think, therefore, that any considerable property of genuine use to A.A. should be separately incorporated and managed, thus dividing the material from the spiritual. An A.A. group, as such, should never go into business. Secondary aids to A.A., such as clubs or hospitals which require much property or administration, ought to be incorporated and so set apart that, if necessary, they can be freely discarded by the groups. Hence such facilities ought not to use the A.A. name. Their management should be the sole responsibility of those people who financially support them. For clubs, A.A. managers are usually preferred. But hospitals, as well as other places of recuperation, ought to be well outside A.A.—and medically supervised. While an A.A. group may cooperate with anyone, such cooperation ought never go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied. An A.A. group can bind itself to no one.” (long form)

    Many years ago old-timers would refer to Tradition 6 when people would talk about an “AA Picnic” “AA potluck” or “AA Dance” and say AA has no such things, and we do not endorse such things. Same thing that we don’t have “AA treatment centers”, most treatment centers base (loosely) their programs on the AA’s 12 steps, but are not affiliated nor endorsed by AA.

    Here in Arizona I’ve seen a “Pink Can” being passed around to help pay for materials for H&I (Hospitals and Institutions) to provide Big Books and other A.A. literature to those places. This seems, to me, to be financing those outside institutions. So I don’t contribute to those cans…. But I was curious about them and the traditions so I did a google search and found the following in Box 459 News and Notes from the General Service Office of A.A. (AA’s newsletter)

    Pink Cans: Small Change Brings Big Results (2006)

    A large number of inmates in correctional facilities in the U.S. and Canada are in prison because of alcohol, and the flip side is that many of these alcoholics have found the Fellowship in prison. But the quest for sobriety doesn’t come easily behind the walls. Most incarcerated alcoholics have just one meeting a week available to them, and many others are on waiting lists and can get to none at all. That reality underlines the need to send literature into prisons to carry the message in print through the Big Book, other A.A. books and pamphlets, and the A.A. Grapevine.

    How to raise enough money to keep a supply of literature flowing? Corrections committees throughout the service structure make raising money for literature a priority, and one idea that has become popular in some areas is having a pink can (or perhaps a blue or green one) prominently displayed on group literature tables as a way of collecting money for literature for prisons.

    The concept originated (as far as we know) in the Northern California Area in 1957. The area Hospital and Institutions committee (H&I) was rapidly expanding its work in prisons, and the need for literature was increasing by leaps and bounds, to the point where it could no longer be met by individual contributions. Someone came up with the idea of passing around a can at group meetings, explaining that the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters dropped into the can were intended for alcoholics in pris- ons and hospitals. How to make the cans stand out? Paint them pink. The idea caught on, and eventually groups throughout North America began displaying pink cans on their literature tables. In Northern California, the original one-quart paint cans have been replaced by plastic con- tainers with screw-on, slotted tops. In the beginning, some members were afraid that donations to the pink cans would decrease group contributions, and mindful of that possibility, the committee has always emphasized the importance of providing clear information. They send each group a flyer explaining what the cans are for, print

    information in local A.A. newsletters, and always suggest that the secretary emphasize the importance of contributing to group expenses first.

    Some areas have come up with variations on the basic concept. Northern New Jersey, for example, implemented the idea of having jail boxes, and the area corrections committee sends each group a letter of introduction describing the need and the purpose.

    In the Southern Minnesota area, one of many that have embraced the pink can plan, an article in the area newsletter summed it up: “The pink can is not intended to detract from your group’s normal Tradition Seven contributions. We look only to collect spare change from as many groups as possible. If your group already sponsors a facility with literature, your participation in the pink can insures that literature is reaching all facilities, not just one or two. Does your group have a pink can? What a positive way to turn pocket change into the promises of the A.A. message.”

    Which suggests that the GSO (General Service Office) is alright with this idea and on board.

    But I question if the multi-billion dollar prison industry and treatment centers need us to provide literature to their inmates – their ideas of A.A.’s twelve step program is not the A.A. but a treatment program that takes our steps out of the book and puts them on worksheets and in handouts (opinion).

    I don’t know how others feel about this, but I’m a little on the fence about it and would love to hear what others think about it.

  • Loss of Words

    I went to see the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug Friday night even after a friend had commented on Facebook about being disappointed with it. See, I’m a fan of the genre, I’m a fan of the book and three that came after – I could recall many of the parts that made up the Lord of the Rings trilogy but found I couldn’t for the Hobbit, that partially explains why my friend Rob was disappointed but I enjoyed the movie.

    When I was watching the dwarves and Bilbo on the mountain – I found myself thinking of Flint Fireforge from the Dragonlance series and I got a little misty thinking about when he passed on and Tasslehoff’s tears… yet, knowing I read the Hobbit you’d think I could recall all the details of that, but I cannot. I remember Smaug, I remember there being dwarves, a spider and maybe some elves… but that’s about the extent of it. When I think of Dragonlance, I can recall intimate details and feelings about Raistlin and his brothers relationship, knowing how Tanis Half-Elven was torn between the ageless elf and the sultry Kitara… Maybe I loved that series more? I don’t know, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy stayed with me longer.

    As I was thinking on it I think of all those books I read when I was younger and how they seemingly changed my life:

    A Brave New World

    1984

    Flowers for Algernon

    Way of the Peaceful Warrior

    A ton of stories from Jack London

    A Clockwork Orange

    You know, I can’t recall details of those books, I have a memory of how much they meant to me at the time and how into them I was, but they didn’t stick. I remember a line from Way of the Peaceful Warrior “we only sell fruit juice here and don’t call me Pop” and I recall being truly frightened reading A Clockwork Orange… but I don’t really have any details, I can’t quote them or reference them with any authority as they’re gone.

    I have them on my Kindle, I bought all these books because I used to own them and I wanted them to be a part of my collection again. And I might have to reread them again, to see if the magic is still there – if they grab me and take me to the world the author wanted me to experience with them, to see if I still get frightened during or if this time 1984 scares me more.

    I don’t have memories of people from the late 70s to 80s either, they’re just gone. There are people from two different high schools that I’m supposed to know and I can’t seem to place them, they seem oddly familiar but they’re just not inside my head anymore. Kind of weird really. I pretend, it’s easy on Facebook to pretend I remember, but I don’t… There come times though when I run into them in real life and then the pretending go well, cause I can’t lie about it… happened a few years ago when I was visiting a friend I do remember and two of our high school mates showed up, but I couldn’t recall them and I should have been able to, and it’s happened since and will likely happen again. Part of why I stay in touch with some many people from past jobs is I’m afraid if I don’t I won’t be able to remember them – it could happen.

    Anyway, I’m looking forward to rereading these stories and going to another world with the authors.