RIP Bob W

Bob W was the longest friendship in my life.  I had known him for 50 years.  He got melanoma two years ago.   It was seemingly successfully treated until he was diagnosed with 11 brain tumors 4 months ago.  He died in his sleep last night.

Bob was a really good friend to me although we were not all that close over the last 30 years, he was always there for me when I needed him or just reached out to talk with him.  Bob had two boys, Brandon and Paul, that he was close with.  His wife Loni will miss him dearly.

I don’t really know how to grieve this loose.  I am sure there will be a funeral in the near future.  My of my early teen years, Bob’s friends were my friends although they were two years older than me.  They remained close to this day.

I am grateful for having been blessed to have Bob in my life.  Bob was a really nice guy.

Our Gratitude Dinner

The District 34 Gratitude Dinner was tonight at the North Bellevue Community Center.  It has been a sellout crowd of 250 people for the last ten years.  By far and away, it is the most consistent holiday tradition I have ever had in my life. 

We did not have a Gratitude Dinner in 2000.  Nobody rented the hall and they somehow went in the hole $2000 the previous year.  I rented the hall from 2001 until 2012.  I definitely feel a small piece of pride in having been part of making this be what it is.  It is a great Gratitude Dinner for our local AA and Alanon community.

Tonight’s vaguely followed theme was “love and service” which is from Dr Bob’s short speech at the AA’s 1950 first International Convention “Our Twelve Steps, when simmered down to the last resolve themselves into the words “love” and “service.” We understand what love is, and we understand what service is. So let’s bear those two things in mind.”

I was blessed to be able to pick out the theme while making the tickets, help set up before the event tonight, rinse the empty food platters during the Alanon speaker, bring several new people and help organize a fast many-hands-make-light-work cleanup.  It is good to be able to contribute positive things to my community in a way that makes it better for all of us.

There were three people at our table tonight with three months of sobriety or less.  It was their first sober social event.  It is really important for all alcoholics, especially so for the newly sober ones, to have a safe recovery oriented social event to participate in during the holiday season.

I am grateful for my sobriety, gratitude, Gratitude Dinners, friends and “family” in recovery and delicious holiday food.

A Winter Wonderland

The first snow of winter has covered much of the grass and the well-insulated roofs of my apartment project.  For an hour or two, it is very pretty.   My rear-wheel drive car does poorly in the snow—especially trying to go uphill around right-angle turns with speed bumps.  That is reason enough for me to stay home this morning.

It would have been nice to go for a swim and a meeting this morning.  I could probably make it out and back.  The downside of failure is not worth the risk.

I am grateful for the beauty of snow and for our temperate weather which will hopefully keep the snow off the pavement for our brief snowfall this morning and on through the forecast for next four days of freezing weather. 

Attraction

AA’s 11^th Tradition is Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.  There is a lot of confusion among AA members as to what constitutes attraction, promotion and public information. 

Simplistically:

Attraction is this is what I did to create a manageable life after becoming powerless over alcohol;

Promotion is you should… go to AA,stop drinking, get a job, have a sponsor, work the steps, etc., A classic statement  heard at meetings is that it is easy to tell an alcoholic, you just can’t tell the much.

Public information is providing information about AA, how to find a meeting, or how to contact AA, etc.

I got to chair a meeting on the 11^th tradition this morning.  I have done a lot of AA volunteering aka “service work” doing public information type outreach.  That did not keep me sober though I am blessed to still be attending AA meetings and hope to have 9 months again next week.

Reading Dacher Keltner’s Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life this morning before the meeting, I came across a graph showing how women are more concerned with a potential partners income than men are, while men rate beauty as more important in a partner than men do.  Thus we get rich old guys with trophy wives.  What is more important to both men and women than money or beauty is kindness.  That is the most attractive attribute in a partner.

Thus a program of attraction is about being kind to others.  Today we talked about kindness on the day after Thanksgiving.  It was insightful, joyful and pleasant.  Members, new and old, were most attracted to the kindness they received from and were able to give to others.

The Thanksgiving Alcathon schedule was still going on from yesterday until Saturday AM.  A young woman came into the meeting late.  Afterwards, she asked when the next meeting would be.  It was not for another 2 hours.  The next group was scheduled to host an interim alcathon meeting at 10:45.  There was clearly nobody there to run that meeting.  I told her we would have a meeting in a few minutes.  We went outside, chatted with others for a bit and then asked them to join us for an alcathon meeting.  Some left and eight of us started an impromptu meeting with Lea serving as secretary.  After Lea shared, the woman shared and cried with joy about the kindness she had found in AA that morning when we held a meeting just because we heard she wanted one.  It was a powerful moment for all of us.

I am grateful to be a much kinder person these days than I ever knew how to be before in my life.  It feels really good to be positive and spending much less time in negativity.  I am also grateful for my new keyboard which is still slick with some sort of plastic oil or sealant and works great with all the keys clearly legible instead of being worn off like the old keys were.

A Nice Thanksgiving

I am still using a small keyboard so this will be short.  Expecting the replacement tomorrow.

Lea, Michelle and I had a pleasant quiet Thanksgiving today.  Went to a meeting, chatted with others, went to the movie Penguins of Madagascar at Lincoln Square, back the Alano Club for a Thanksgiving meal, home for a nap, watched the Seahawks spank the SF 49ers, and called a few people to wish them Happy Thanksgiving.

We were going to have a prime rib roast but were lacing cooking motivation after the movie.  The Alano Club was practically on the way home from the movie and it is always a good idea to stop by an Alcathon on major holidays.  The chasm between Norman Rockwell and reality can be brutalling overwhelming for any alcoholic and especially so for those with dysfunctional families.

I am grateful for a pleasant sober Thanksgiving with friends and no drama.

An Airport Pickup

Picked up Greg at SeaTac at noon.  It was not crowded in the arrivals section at noon—which was a pleasant surprise on the day before Thanksgiving.  We had a delicious lunch at the Salvadorian bakery in White Center with TM.

It was vastly more pleasant to pickup Greg when he has almost 13 months sober versus those times in the past when he only had a few days and needed me to front him a Greyhound ticket home.  That is night and day difference in the quality of life and our ride home.  Today he was a happy successful jubilant man on the way home to join his parents for Thanksgiving.  That is a lot better than being an alcoholic in the thralls of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

I am grateful for my friendship with Greg, for our sobriety today and for the anticipation of a pleasant Thanksgiving tomorrow.  Our Thanksgiving plan is a meeting, movie at Lincoln Square and prime rib for dinner.

Keyboard Problems

My Microsoft ergonomic keyboard died earlier today.   I learned that when trying to write today’s Gratitude blog post.   Fortunately I had three backup keyboards including an old MS PS2 keyboard.  The other two USB keyboards are not ergonomic which is all I have used for at least ten years.  The smallish Logitech keyboard is not going to get it for a longer post.

Thanks to the miracle of Amazon, I will have a replacement MS ergonomic keyboard on Friday.

I am grateful for spare parts and easy access to budget replacements.   I was going to write about my Tuesday support group.

Apartment Maintenance

One great advantage of living in well run apartment complex is timely maintenance at no extra cost.  The dishwasher was acting up this weekend.  Wrote a online work request this morning and it is fixed this afternoon.

I am grateful for timely maintenance done at no extra charge by Essex nee’ BRE Properties.  They are a multibillion dollar corporation that runs well managed rental properties.

An Alcoholic’s Best Thinking

…is a terrible thing.   55 days ago, we picked up Michelle from the ER at Harborview after enduring her second horrific beating in two weeks.  She said she was willing to go to any length and agreed to go to two meetings a day while she stayed with us.  This last week meeting attendance has been close to two per week than per day.

It is said and tragic to watch one of the smartest most talented women I have known to skip the good orderly direction (aka god) of going to 12 step meetings and heading over to church expecting a different result than how it has gone for the last two years (or ten year for that matter).

I am sure church is a wonderful thing for those who it works for.  I envy church-goers their sense of community and wish I too found it there.  Unfortunately, the dogma of religion is a terrible turnoff for me. Buddhist philosophy and mindful meditation work well for me, but I don’t go to temples.

I strongly tend to shut down from ridiculous conflict.  On Monday when I showed Michelle where she was eligible for $800/month in benefits in direct opposition to what she claimed to be quoting from an agency counselor, she started yelling and kept going far longer than what I was willing to participate in.  Since then, I have pretty much shut down in my conversations with her.  My thinking is that if she is not willing to discuss facts about possibly getting $800/month, there is little (no) chance she is going to be willing to discuss more subtle things like how to stay sober.

I don’t need to kick her out.  She will either get it together or get out all on her own in the near future.  Hopefully she will get it together.  I will try to say what I am thinking in a kind and gentle way that hopefully helps both us.  It is not likely I will be able to say anything so profound as to stop an alcoholic from drinking, but it might help her and will help me to own my feelings in a way that prevents me from being as sick as my secrets.

Maybe she can do it the church way. Surely many church people are sober.  I don’t do church and can’t help with that.  I have watched Michelle do church and go out several times.   I do AA and while my track record is not perfect, it is at least 99% sobriety since I went to rehab in May of 1999.

I am grateful that I am able to stay away from my best thinking the vast majority of the time and use good orderly direction to live a life that is mostly serene and happier than how it used to be while having great compassion from those that lose the thought-war with the fatal progressive disease of alcoholism.

An Early Thanksgiving Dinner

Danica and Jayse joined us for an early turkey dinner today on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  Michelle did the cooking. The food was delicious.   It was a pleasant quiet meal due in some part to my feeling poorly from my ongoing UTI and Lea not feeling well.

We will likely go out to a movie on Thanksgiving in the early afternoon.  Reasons we ate early include not having to eat another turkey two days later at our local AA district Gratitude Dinner next Saturday and to avoid being overwhelmed by the “not Norman Rockwell” feeling that can easily happen to—and overwhelm—those us with dysfunctional families.

As addicts in recovery, we have a lot to be grateful for.  Being sober, a delicious peaceful meal with our recovery family, for a nice place to live, and people that love us is a really good place to start.

I am grateful for a pleasant holiday meal at home.  Three other adults is the most I have ever served at my home on Thanksgiving.  I am showing up in a different and better way in my life.

Antibiotics

Came down with a bladder infection (UTI) yesterday.  It has been two years since I last had a problem with a UTI and it was a doozy that kept me on extremely powerful antibiotics for a year.  I thought it would never go away.

Prior to WWII and the wide-spread use of penicillin, bladder infections were the primary cause of death for people with spinal cord injuries.   Today I have pills for these problems that reduce the infection and the side effects such as fevers, chills, headaches and nausea.  Hopefully this will eliminate the infection immediately.  Otherwise it can get into a long drawn-out hassle or worse.

I am grateful for the advent of modern antibiotics.  They saved my life at least a dozen times in the past 33 years.

Taking A Little Action

Today was a moderately active day of a meeting, swimming, worked on my HTPC, made arrangement to get rid of Doug’s old entertainment center and started organizing for our early turkey day on Saturday.    That is a lot better than yesterday when I did not make it out of the apartment.

I am grateful for the tools to take a little action after being overwhelmed by depression.  It is vital to stop the downward spiral early in the process.  It would be even better to not get the spiral started.

Depression

I have had chronic depression since at least my early teens.  Staying sober, going to meetings, studying positive psychology, swimming, and years of therapy has greatly improved my emotional well-being. 

Nonetheless, depression can still get the best of me.  I could not get out of bed for my usual morning meeting.   In part, this was due an emotional hangover from yesterday’s using thoughts.  A big reason why I have a daily routine is to make sure I do those activities that are good for me and don’t get stuck at home isolating with my own best thinking.  Fortunately I had plans for lunch in Woodinville with my friend Mark.  At least I made it out of the apartment today for a couple hours.

I am grateful my depression is not nearly as bad as it used to be and for the vastly improved toolset I have for dealing with it today.  It will be better tomorrow.  I will go to my meeting and then for a swim.  After that, we will start getting ready for a early Thanksgiving turkey dinner this Saturday.  Having a plan helps a lot.

A Blah Day

Did the usual Tuesday morning routine of meditation readings with Lea and Michelle, meeting, Crossroads Mall with Charlie and Margie and Diana, light grocery shopping, and then home for lunch.

Felt some degree of loneliness that lead to a craving to use in order to “be somebody”, talked about it with others and then took a nap.  Using always changes how I feel—I like the high and would then feel bad about yet another relapse for days, weeks and months to come.  The insanity of addiction is that spending all my money on a high that might last for a day seems reasonable.  It is frustrating to never be more than another hit away from a relapse.

So my afternoon was a big nap followed by a broccoli dinner then three TV shows and finishing off a so-so sci-fi book on my Kindle.  For a blah day with more than a little compulsion and/or craving to use, having stayed sober is a really great place to be.

I am grateful for the eight months and two weeks that I have sober today.  That is a lot better than starting over with no money, no time and mass incomprehensible demoralization.

Nothing Special

Facing a bit of writer’s block, tonight’s post is on nothing special.  People, especially in America, grossly overestimate how much happiness a new X will bring them where X is a new: pair of shoes; car; bigger house; pay raise; or job.

Today I am reasonably happy for no special reason.  Went for a short swim tonight, have a good book to finish reading and got my heavy comforter back from the dry cleaners today.  It will be a good night to snuggle up in a warm bed and read.

I have a little mental agitation over a bizarre “argument” with Michelle.  She took a position that was demonstrably factually incorrect and then continued to argue for it as if talking louder and faster would change the facts.  That behavior undoubtedly worked better on the streets than it does in recovery.  I don’t understand arguing against facts. I understand interpretation and applicability of a given fact, but not arguing the fact itself.  For example, the force of gravity at sea level is 9.8 m/s^2.   In practice, that would be impacted by wind resistance for a falling object or stationary mass and so needs context.

I am grateful to be happy for “no special reason”.  That is infinitely better than playing the “if only I had this” game.

A Good Digestive System

My stomach works really well.  I have been nauseous only a few times in my life when seriously infected and a few times from too much alcohol.  I don’t have any food allergies that I am aware of.  I rarely get cramps, have never had an ulcer and rarely have diarrhea.

My roommate gets torn-up by problems with her digestive system.  It hurts so bad at times she is crying in pain even on almost 200 mg of methadone.  During a bad week of problems, she might vomit several times a day for several days—between bouts of more and less pain.

It boggles my mind how someone with stomach problems like hers does not research food allergies and dietary supplements, much less live on a diet primarily consisting of quesadillas made from corn tortillas, teriyaki chicken meatballs, cheese and pineapple sauce and with her beverage of choice being decaf coffee with lots of liquid creamer and sugar.

I am extremely grateful for a stomach that works consistently well with little pain and no known allergies.

1001 Gratitude Blog Posts

Yesterday was 1000 Gratitude blog posts on this website.  I am fantastically pleased with my progress due to writing about gratitude and for making it to 1000 posts.  When I wrote my first post back on 12/27/10, it was an open ended commitment to myself to write 5x/week for the year 2011.

Reading that post I saw that my goal for 2010 was to go to a meeting a day and made it to about 150 meetings.  Now I am averaging 10 meetings a week since Labor Day and have done a meeting a day for the 8 months prior to that.  I am much better at doing good self-care now than how I used to be.

Watched a good friend speak at a gratitude dinner tonight.  She did well.  My passengers acknowledged gaining some insight into relationship dynamics of alcoholics and their families.  Not enough to do the work of an Alanon program, but it was still some insight into the issues of why an ex-husband one friend had not seen for years called to berate her before we went to the meeting.

I am grateful to still be writing about gratitude, many meetings and my sobriety.  I am happy for my success after a somewhat grumpy evening on my part.

A 60th Birthday

A 60^th Birthday

Today is my sister’s 60^th birthday.   That is a significant milestone in our time on this world.  She is perhaps 2/3rds of the way through her life.  She is far and away the most successful of her siblings.  I am very proud of her and appreciate having her in my life—even if she does live on the far side of the world.

We don’t celebrate Xmas with gifts.  We do celebrate birthdays with gifts in a somewhat asymmetrical manner.  She gets me durable goods such as kitchen knives or cordless phone sets and I buy her flowers.  I love my Rachel Ray knives and Panasonic base station with 5 cordless handsets.  I hope she likes her birthday bouquets.

I am grateful to have my sister in my life.  She is very important to me.  My sister is the only biological relative I communicate with.  We are in contact via this blog and email.  We have not talked in person for several years. 

More Aaaahh For The Awes

I need one more writing assignment to finish my MOOC Science of Happiness class tonight.  The assignment is to write about things that inspire a sense of awe in me.  Certainly nature’s beauty is an easy place to start from the physical beauty of a starry nights, sunny days, snow covered mountains, stormy coastlines, and then on over to the biological beauty of plants, trees, and flowers.

Athletes and scientists inspire awe with their abilities and achievements that few of us will ever match.  Religious figures including the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Lao Tzu created belief systems that are changed the world for millennia that are perhaps even more active vibrant contributors to world culture today than they were back in their day.

Philosophers and artists often paved the way for science.  Aristotle and Leonardo are two of the all-time great thinkers that stood the test of time.

Friends are an inspired source of awe.  18 months ago, Lea was deep in the incomprehensible demoralization of active addiction.  She was definitely in danger of a premature demise from drugs or violence.  Today she is a leader at her morning meeting serving as secretary and working with her first two sponsees.  It takes a ferocious amount of courage and faith to turn your life around like that at any age.  I am in awe of the changes she has made to get to where she is at today.

There are plenty of things and people to inspire a great sense of awe in me today.  A new pair of spiritual glasses reveals plenty to be inspired by.

I am grateful for the awe in my life today.  That is a lot better than the pessimistic cynicism I used to “enjoy”.

Looking Outward

We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no requests for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.  Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 87

As an active alcoholic, I allowed selfishness to run rampant in my life. I was so attached to my drinking and other selfish habits that people and moral principles came second. Now, when I pray for the good of others rather than my "own selfish ends," I practice a discipline in letting go of selfish attachments, caring for my fellows and preparing for the day when I will be required to let go of all earthly attachments.

Daily Reflections for November 13^th

My life and thinking are no longer driven so madly along by a fear-powered self-will run riot.  Today I am able to act with compassion and empathy for others in healthy helpful ways.

I am grateful for the people in my life today that make me a better happier kinder person.  Today I get to lead by example in a kind and loving way that helps others and makes me happier.

Time For Change After Lots of Time Together

Lea started methadone last year on March 12^th.  The last 18 months have changed her life and my perception of clinical methadone treatment for opiate addicts.  There has been a tremendous amount of “harm reduction” in her life.  She no longer commits crimes and hangs out with criminals as a way of life, no more IV drug abscesses, no more life on the lam always having a warrant out for her arrest for some FTA (Failure To Appear) court issue. Now she goes to 12-step meetings every day, is a meeting secretary and works with others.

Helping her get started on getting her life back together has been the best thing to help another person I have ever done in my life.  25 years ago I started 3 charities that greatly helped many others making a bigger in aggregate—but still nearly invisible—improvement in our society at large. 

Helping Lea changed my life vastly for the better.  I am a much happier person than I used to be.

Except for a few short relapses over a year ago, we have spent most of every day together.  That is far and away the best I ever got along with another person in my life. 

This week my tolerance for her foibles has diminished sharply.  It is not that she is doing anything more annoying or even outrageous, more nearly it is a case of my expectations rising rapidly. 

For example, she regularly goes right outside the door of the meeting hall to smoke in violation of stated request by group meeting “script”, posted policy where she smokes, county law, state law, a hand-written note from me asking her not to do so due to problems with loud disruptive conversations, and requests by group members going outside to ask her to be quiet.  This morning before the meeting, I asked her to not do that today.  Her defensive response was to the effect of “why not?”   When I explained the above to her again, she attacked with “you are not perfect either”.  All in all, a minor thing relative to the difference between shooting heroin and being sober, but still it feels like I have had enough for now.  I will spend with others for the next few days and hope that both my tolerance for her asocial behavior increases and she more closely follows group norms. 

In a perfect world, we could all treat each other equally.  In the real world, we are all different.  Michelle with her 30 days damages something nearly every day such as cooking with my good Tupperware in the microwave putting burn marks in the plastic.  She is doing the best she can while too raw and sensitive for daily criticism, I will buy another $50 or $100 worth of Tupperware next year.  At this time, I would rather have her sober than having less beat-up plastic dishes.

I believe most of Lea’s antisocial ways are due to the selfish self-seeking self-centeredness of being an addict as opposed to trying to be deliberately bitchy or annoying.  The vast majority of alcoholics are at heart extremely kind and loving people wrapped in a thick veneer of asocial traits to protect their hypersensitive & hypervigilant “inner child” from being hurt.  Sooner or later, we have to grow up to stay sober.  I truly believe that inside Lea is an extremely kind, loving and nurturing woman.  

I hope this works out well for both of us.  It will change.

I am grateful for my part in helping Lea get her life together.  I am also grateful for having healthy boundaries, being able to express my frustrations by talking with others and posting here.

The First Freeze of Fall

Tomorrow’s forecast predicts a record-tying low of 29°F for Seattle.  So far, the weather has been so nice that I have not had to turn the heat yet this Fall.  The giant TV in my bedroom helped with that since I do sorta use it as a heater.  Still this is the latest in the season I can ever remember turning the heat on for the colder weather.  Today after lunch, Sandy and I sat chatting comfortably in the (relatively) warm sun on 54° day.

I am grateful for the beautiful warm weather we had this year with much less of that dreary Seattle gray mist and more sunny skies.

Thinking It Through

Three days ago, my ego ginned-up a compelling impulse for me to get a friend to like me more as if I had control over that sort of thing.  Historically, that compulsion has backfired for me every time I acted on it turning a functional relationship into rubble in short order leading to immediate regret, guilt, shame and frustration.

Fortunately for both my friend and I, working steps 4 through 7 seems to have reduced my compulsion down to the usual low-level insane background noise in my mind. 

In step 4 of the big book, it talks about how alcoholics want to be directors of all the world as if it was a stage show.  If only people would do and think as I say, things would be fine.  Of course that doesn’t work.

Step 5 is talking with god and others about our issues.  I did that with multiple people today sharing my insane self-destructive compulsion.  They understood what I was talking about and agreed that was insane, self-destructive and that not only would it be best to not act upon it, but to turn it over to my higher power.

Step 6 in the 12x12 discusses instincts run amuck by we which we alcoholics try to get more pleasure of things than they can possibly provide.  This was totally what was going on in my mind.  Rather that working to find a reasonable amount of happiness from various sources, I wanted near-infinite happiness from another human being.  That was a non-starter.

Step 7 is where we humble ask god to remove our defects of character.  That was the topic of tonight’s meeting.   The solution was clearly presented to me during the meeting.  I am in a lot better spiritual condition now than I was yesterday.

I am grateful for my friends in recovery, my relationship with a god of my understanding and the newfound ability to head off insane thinking before it turns into insane behavior.

Being of Service to Others

Give three others a ride to a meeting tonight.  It is new behavior for me to regularly travel with more than one other person.

There was a squeak in car since I bought it.  My car shop finally found a loose bolt and tightened it down this week.  The excitement of having a car in perfect working order with no squeaks lasted about two trips.

I am grateful to have friends in recovery, a car, drivers license, insurance and money for gas.

Double Posting – Part 1

I had good but never perfect attendance at school.  I now have a chance to average perfect attendance to writing in my Gratitude blog every day this year.  I am 9 posts shy of averaging a post per day in 2014.  I will post an extra 9 times before the end of the year for an average of a post per day.

There is no particular reason for doing this beyond a mild sense of achievement in posting about gratitude 365 times in a year.  Maybe writing twice a day will make me more grateful.  It already has me reflecting on my childhood of being a reasonably good student by attendance standards at the very least.  One factoid I remember from my college days (that may or may not be true) is that the number correlation between grades and anything is attendance.  This will be my way of averaging perfect attendance on my Gratitude blog posts.

I am grateful for my consistently posting here this year.  It has been a great year for improved relationships and a better happier state of mental health.

St Francis House – Seattle

St. Francis House in Seattle provides free clothes and food to the estimated 9000 homeless people in King County.  They are funded only by donations from individuals and corporations with no money from the Archdiocese nor United Way.

I drove Michelle and Lea to St. Francis House this morning.  They went in and an hour later Michelle came out with bedding, clothes, coat, hat and gloves.  Lea got a quilt.

There were close to 20 people coming or going from St. Francis in the hour that I was parked outside.  Some come for the sandwiches and coffee, others for personal supplies like soap and toilet paper, and others for clothes and bedding.  Many looked to be homeless of which some undoubtedly were in active addiction.  There were also young mothers and couples that had to be struggling to make ends meet.

I am grateful for resources like St. Francis House that provide immediate walk-in services to the neediest of our people in realtime with no questions asked.  If I was in their situation, I sure as heck would want help from the good people of St. Francis House.

Numerology -- Part 4

As posted before, numerology is my favorite word to misuse.   My numerology always has a story.  Here are a few short stories.

Today’s numerology is that I have 990 posts on this Gratitude blog starting with the first two posts in December of 2010.  There are 301 posts for 2014 on day 311 of the year giving me a 96.8% posting rate.  There is a temptation to posts an extra 10 times in the next 7 weeks to give me 365 posts for the year for the sake of some foolish consistency.  There would be a sense of achievement in averaging exactly 1.0 posts per day.  Not sure that I would be much more grateful.  I certainly have the time to write 10 extra posts.  We will see.

Yesterday I had 8 months of sobriety.  One goal is to swim twice a week. A second goal is to go to an extra three meetings per week on top of a meeting every day for a total of 10 meetings per week.  That has gone pretty well since Labor Day.

I am grateful for fun with numbers.  It is good to be able to quantify things.  It is great to be so much more grateful than how it used to be.

Just One Thing: Be Amazed

Just One Thing: Be Amazed

From GreaterGood.berkely.edu

By Rick Hanson | October 30, 2014 | 0 comments

Rick Hanson reminds us to see existence with delight, awe, gratitude, and wow!

Last night, stressing about undone tasks, I glanced in a mirror and saw my T-shirt, with its picture of a galaxy and a little sign sticking up out of its outer swirls, saying “You are here.”

A joke gift from my wife, I’ve worn this shirt many times—yet for once it stopped me in my tracks. In William Blake’s phrase, the doors of perception popped open and it really hit me: Yes we are actually here, off to the edge of a vast floating whirlpool of stars, alive and conscious, walking and talking on a big rock circling a bigger burning ball of gas. Here, now, nearly fourteen billion years after the cosmos emerged out of nothing. What the?!

My mind stopped yapping and I felt the delight and awe of a little kid who for the first time sees a butterfly, or tastes ice cream, or realizes that the stars above are really far away. Gratitude and wow and something edging into dare I say it sacred washed through me. In a word, I was amazed—which means “filled with wonder and surprise,” even “overwhelmed with wonder.”

Besides the simple happiness in this experience, it lifted me above the tangled pressures and worries I was stuck to like a bug on flypaper. Amazement is instant stress relief. It also opens the heart: I couldn’t any longer be even a little exasperated with my wife. Perhaps most deeply, being amazed brings you into the truth of things, into relationship with the inherent mysteries and overwhelming gifts of existence, scaled from the molecular machinery of life to the love and forgiveness in human hearts to the dark matter that glues the universe together. Wow. Really. Wow.

How? Opportunities for amazement are all around us. I think back to that look in the eyes of our son and daughter as they were born, blinking in the light of the room, surprised by all the shapes and colors, entering a whole new world. Seen with the eyes of a child, the simplest thing is amazing: a blade of grass, being licked by a puppy, the taste of cinnamon, riding piggyback on your daddy, or the fact that running your eyes over lines of black squiggles fills your mind with tales of dragons and heroes and fairy godmothers.

Look around you. This morning I sat down to my computer, clicked a mouse, and chanting recorded in a Russian cathedral filled the room. Crazy! Imagine being a Stone Age person transported 50,000 years forward into your chair. Glass windows, pencils, flat wood, the smell of coffee, woven cloth, a metal spoon… it would all be amazing.

Try to see more of your world in this way, as if you are seeing it for the first time, perhaps through the eyes of a child if not a caveman. Beginner’s mind, zen mind. If you’re not amazed, you’re not paying attention.

Explore “don’t know mind”—not “duh” mind, but an openness that doesn’t immediately slot things into boxes, that allows a freshness and curiosity. The mind categorizes and labels things to help us survive. Fine enough, but underneath this skim of meaning laid over the boiled milk of reality, we don’t truly know what anything is. We use words like “atoms” and “quarks” and “photons,” but no one knows what a quark or photon actually is. We don’t know what love actually is, either, but it is all around us.

It’s amazing to me that people love me, amazing that people forgive each other, that those once at war with each other can eventually live in peace. Consider people you know, how they keep going when they’re tired, breathe through pain, get up yet again to walk a crying baby, settle down in the middle of an argument and admit fault and move on. To me, that a mother can embrace the young man who murdered her son is more amazing than an exploding supernova. And just as others are amazing to you, you are also amazing to them.

If we were brave enough to be more often filled with wonder and surprise, we would treat ourselves and others and our fragile world more gently.      

I am grateful for the awe in my life.   Nature’s beauty, the kindness of people, a delicious meal, life on earth,  language, friends, the genius of scientists and artists, and low-bottom drunks getting sober are some of my favorite sources of awe.

I Joined the 4G Cell Universe Today

My 601 days old 3G Motorola Defy lost its first touchscreen key last week providing the final impetus for me to join the 4G world at long last.   I use Republic Wireless which is a hybrid rebiller on the Sprint CDMA network.  RW first tries to use wifi for calls and data, if wifi is not available it uses the Sprint network.   The end result is that I get unlimited 4G for $40/month.

The catch is that RW only allows a handful of Motorola phone models and none of them are phablets (oversize cell phones : phablet = “phone” + “tablet”).  I ordered the phone by email Monday morning and it was here when I got home early Tuesday afternoon.

So far, I can make calls, check email, text and surf the web.   More will revealed.  I am sure I will use more data on this phone than the old one. 

I am grateful for the miracles of 4G cell phones, smart phones, network rebillers and superfast delivery.

A Little Progress is Better Than Nothing

My online class has two writing assignments.  The first is to write a letter describing my own best self in which I would write a page describing the best life I can realistically imagine for myself in a year or two.  The second assignment is to write a gratitude letter to a person that was really nice to me that I have not yet thanked that I could see in the next week or two.

The letter to my own best self got as far as being 40 lbs lighter, more physically fit from swimming 3x/week, doing 10 hours/week of volunteering and 10 hours of metalsmithing each week. The more details the better.  I did a short version of that.  It turns out that it works best if I follow it up with additional work each day for two weeks.  I plan on doing that.

My gratitude letter will be to Micheal M for reaching out to me two years ago when I was in really early recovery after an 8-month relapse smoking crack cocaine.  I got the letter started but was shutting down emotionally as I thought about it.  I will work on it more tomorrow.

Sure, I wish I got more writing done tonight.  It is good that I got two letters started and am writing this Gratitude blog post.  I was just going to blog a one-liner about being balked.  It is great progress to write more specifically about where I am at and what I will do tomorrow.  It is not as good as the ideal practice, it is a lot better than nothing or the written equivalent of a monosyllabic response.

I am grateful to Jackie James for teaching me how to scuba dive, Mike M for reaching out to me, my online class and for the progress I have made in being able to do a “right-sized” kind gentle self-evaluation and share my feelings with others on a daily basis by talking and blogging.

A Good Weekend

It was a really good weekend for me.  Got two new sponsees on Friday and later went to a Halloween dance with 3 women and a baby.  Saturday was a trip to Seattle in the morning, college football with ASU beating Utah in overtime and a salmon dinner in La Conner at night.  Sunday was a meeting, printing photos with my new Canon Pixma 8720 photo printer (works great and is user-friendly), with a Sunday dinner, taking Danica and Jayce home and then a meeting.  That is as busy as life gets for me.  It went well with few conflicts.

I am grateful for the recovery and courage to expand my comfort zone allowing others into my life in healthy ways.  Life was good today.

No Reservations Salmon Dinner

Went to the once a month No Reservations speaker meeting in La Conner tonight.   We got there two hours early for a $15/person salmon dinner.   The dinner was worth the price.  We were sitting in a corner where the sound system acoustics were bad making the speakers sound bad.  We left early on during the second speaker.

November is Gratitude Month in AA a la Thanksgiving.  We will be going to listen to Sandy on the 15th in Issaquah and to the local District Gratitude Dinner on the 29^th in Bellevue.

I am grateful to be sober today.  Got two sponsees yesterday   Apparently they want what I have.  That is a lot better than how it used to be.