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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

My part?

"Referring to our list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes."

As one of our eternal mentors (Don) says, "We don't look for our part, because that would assume they have a part in this." Their "part" is of no matter when we're making amends to someone. Whether they have a "part" or not is of no consequence here. If you go into an amend expecting a reciprocal amend, you may be disappointed. To go into it with that expectation may kill the spirit of the whole deal.

Don says that freedom comes in the 6th Step, or the willingness to turn loose of the defect. How can you even see your "part" if you're thinking about their "part"?

It seems like such a huge and simple deal. I can think back to instances where I got free of the defect or did not based on this simple principle.

And on another note, I'm sorry if the removal of some recent posts deleted your comments. The reasoning was that it just did not reach those it was intended for and may have created undue pressure on the recipient. I tend to want answers now rather than considering anothers' reason for posting or not posting. My friend Roger claimed that he couldn't figure out how to post here, but he hasn't called me or emailed me either. Maybe he's just too busy.

Karl and TonyJ, idk. I just don't feel like I should bother them anymore and I wish them well. I've talked to them on the phone in the past and I felt like we left things on good terms. My phone works both ways, so I'll leave them be, but they are missed.

I did a stupid thing over at Stinkin' Thinkin' by even posting over there, but I made mention of Danny B as a such and such pissant or something like that. He found that and responded with an insulting response to me. I was wrong for even mentioning him in that company. I'm going to have to pay for that action.

I want Danny to know that I don't care what he thinks of me. I don't share his assement of me. I'm not a pussy in any way. My sexual orientation is straight in every way. Not that any other is wrong for you. It just is what it is for me. I don't care what you think about our blog and its lack of traffic. I don't care about your blog, your assessment of me, my level of sobriety and spirituality, and my Maker, etc. I just want you to go away. We are done. I would offer to leave you alone and would request you to leave me alone. I don't want what you got and you obviously don't want what I got.

That I'm trying to imagine a world where I've put aside my "rights" and my need to fight, to push back, etc. does not mean I'm going to be any good at it. I've found a path to sobriety and I'm seeking a way to communicate that in a more effective manner. I've still got some defects of character that are not going away over night. This will take time. Maybe my mistakes and subsequent suffering will expedite this process. I hope so anyway.

Hope this post finds you all well. I've got to get ready for work. Have a good day.

10 comments:

  1. This will be my last post here.
    All this you don't want what I got crap, leave it at the dump. Patrick all I have wanted to do for the last 3 months is just slap you back into consciousness. I don't know how far you have drank ST koolaide but you have me all twisted.
    You and many others have been taken on a ride. The prize for them was watching us go at it. You bought it hook, line and sinker.
    Last time I was there was 6 months ago, I have never been back.
    How I knew you posted that shit was from friends who post there. We keep up with members of ST as part of our current events scavenging.
    Stop making this into a war between yourself and I, life is to short. Yes stop acting like a pussy. Jesus!!!
    Oh, I'm sorry because I have been in AA for almost 25 years that I am supposed to act another way...lol.
    Be yourself Patrick that is all you can be. Don't hurt people, don't pretend to be in charge and remember to help the next guy, who ever that may be.
    Tone down the AA message it may help more folks if you do.
    That's it, got it all out.
    I will not be back.
    Take Care
    Danny

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  2. I think you're trying to be Jesus or Buddha. Not that those aren't proper goals, but it's unrealistic to expect to ever get there. I think it's unreasonable to kick your own ass about it, too.

    I had this football coach in high school who was quite the asshole. Coach Green. We used to run two-a-days every August in full pads, and all we got to drink each practice was a small cup of ice, which was melted into water by the time it sat in the Texas heat for an hour and half. This guy ran us ragged, calling us pussies and such, yelling such things as, "you want a fucking bottle, you fucking baby? Huh? Baby want a bottle?"

    It was old-school coaching, and could never happen today. I'm sure you had a coach like this, too. He was a crotchety, abusive SOB, and we loved him for it. He died a few years ago, and he had a couple hundred former players show up at his wake.

    I've no doubt that when he was alive, he would have given any of us a kidney if we needed one. I knew this. My teammates knew it.

    You've got a right to tell me or anyone to fuck off, and I've got at least a moral obligation to put myself in your shoes and walk around. Sometimes the best messages, the best lessons, are conveyed in a way we don't understand - and by the most surprising people, in the most surprising ways.

    Personally, the last thing I want in the world is to surround myself with people who agree with me. Where's the fun in that? And if I want Jesus, I'll go to church. To me, you're like Coach Green. It's what's in your heart that matters to me. I could give a shit how you say what you say, as long as it's honest.

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  3. I am coming from the place of having done a 5th Step though.

    You can bet your sweet ass that Coach Green would have been all up in my 1st Column.

    My coach was a pussy compared to your coach. Texas takes their hs football pretty damned serious, and I'd bet you won some games too. So long as I outran everybody else in drills, the coach didn't give me too much grief. We only had two-a-days in the few summer days before school started to get us in shape. After our first game, he chilled out a bit.

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  4. Yeah, the district I played in in West Texas. Odessa Permian, of Friday Night Lights fame, kicked our asses every year. We drew more fans the CFL games here in Canada. Teachers fixed grades, companies recruited employees into town if they had a kid who could play football. It was back when colleges were openly buying players, and it was fucking free-for-all for a good player. I was not one of them. Steroids, all that stuff. It's why we're a bunch of walking idiots today.

    You would have liked coach Green. And hated him, too.

    The 5th step seems like a shaming ritual to me. I don't know how healthy that is. I mean, every human does some things they aren't proud of. Even non-alkies. My 5th step would last for months.

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  5. Odessa, Texas, ahhhh the memories. I spent a few days in jail in midland the summer of '79.

    I'm from Oklahoma. I went to high school in a little shithole of a town in the northwest part of the state. They take their football pretty seriously there too, it's like a religion. Shoot, in 6th grade peewee football I had a coach who ran us like that. I was a pretty good athlete until freshman year when I got more interested in drinking cheap wine, taking quaaludes, smoking pot and smoking cigarettes and I told my basketball coach to go fuck himself. I then descended from the holy ranks of high school sports to wrong side of the tracks.

    Speaking of the 5th Step, I had that whole fucking town on my inventory, it took several pages. As for shaming, it wasn't for me. It was freeing to find out that I'm not that much different than anyone else.

    Hey MA-remember those classic OU-Texas games?

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  6. Guilt is an easy one. When we do something wrong, get caught, then are actually held accountable for it, it's an easy game. Give me my punishment, I'll do what I have to do and I'm off the hook.

    But shame is when I break my own moral code... my moral and philosophical convictions... then I torture myself with shame. This one isn't so easily cast aside, because it originates in me.

    The 5th Step is no big deal. I have no shame in many of my resentments ... on the surface.

    Let's take my brother for instance. Other than the fact that he offered me a job and kept me on the payroll for 6 and a half years, he was a real fuckhead to everybody but his own selfish ass. But what my inventory and subsequent 5th steps got me aware of was the fact that I chose this.

    Once I see what my ego is up to, I then get a chance to see how ridiculous my view has been and I get a chance to move beyond it and get free of it. Prior to this, I have no idea that I choose this way of life and that I might just have a part in keeping myself in this place.

    I also find out stuff like, I not only choose to work with my tyrant brother, but I'm out to attempt to control, dominate, and overthrow him.

    This may all sound ridiculous to you... but once this line of thought was presented to me, I was finally able to walk away and eventually find something else.

    Yup... 5th step stuff.

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  7. Doesn't sound ridiculous at all, Patrick. My old sponsor's favorite question was "What's your role, what's your motive?" Can't count the number of times he asked me that question.

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  8. I remember telling John (my sponsor) that I felt guilty and asking him why I felt that way. He said I probably felt guilty because I had been doing shit that would cause a guy to feel guilty.

    I went to treatment four times and sat in many A.a. meetings during the 80's. That's when we all had low self-esteem. We were ego maniacs with an inferiority complex, we needed to find our inner child all that horseshit. What I found out was that low self-esteem has never been my problem, and if anything I needed to get in touch with my inner adult. I told John that I needed to get self-esteem back and he said "Anyone that treats people the way you have should feel bad."

    You are right Patrick, shame and remorse are different animals. That's why inventory and a good 5th Step were necessary. I hated my guts when I was newly sober, and as a result, I hated your guts too. I was full of remorse over the way I'd treated my family. So finding out that, as Patrick has said, that I choose my course of action and no one drives me to it, that I make decisions based on self (fear), and that put me in the position to be hurt, and that I'm not the only one who has ever cheated on his wife or yelled at his kid (doesn't make it right) gave me a tremendous sense of freedom.

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  9. MA, I am definitely more of the Odessa type than Midland. I just happened to be working down there on a casing crew and one night, a few of us decided to venture into Midland. Needless to say, we ended up drinking, which led to causing a ruckus, which led to....you know. Midland jail was not much different than any other jail I've visited.

    I also spent a little time in jail in Pampa, Tx, up in the panhandle. Talk about a hell hole.

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