Chapter 2??? still debating...

Chapter 2???

            I wrote this, roughly a month before I took my girls Christmas shopping, but I thought it interesting enough so with a little polish I present my thoughts at Christmas 2007.

Christmas Day 2007

            Well, I first want to say to all of you, thank you, for being my angels this year and for your prayers and kind thoughts. As most of you know I keep toying with the idea of writing a book.  A kind of this is my life, here are my mistakes, please learn from them so you do not have to suffer the  pain I went through, but then I realized that the ones reading this would probably be to smart to get themselves into the messes I have…so such is life.  I never claimed to be a genius and my life has done a pretty good job of showing in stark detail that few would claim I am. 

            But this is Christmas, and those of you who know me, know how much I love this time of year.  I mean really, who else do you know who whistles Christmas tunes in July? This Christmas, I was hard pressed to think of a gift for those who have shown me such love throughout the past year. Dying or almost dying in April has done a good job of messing with me, getting use to having a pretty weird left hand, I can type, hit most of the right keys, just can’t feel my hand as I do it.  I can button my shirt but cannot feel the button hole.  So getting use to my current limitations has been hard.  Not being able to feel my daughters hand in my left hand has sucked, no lying there, but with God’s grace I hope it will get better.  I still have a left hand, I can walk, and I can talk, and I don’t drool, so really life is good.   

            Now what has any of this do with giving you a gift?  Well, this is Christmas, and this is a day for the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, kind of a giant birthday bash. So what I was thinking was I would give you a gift that was given to me.  Every morning as I do my daily reflections, you know that sober thingy, I read a place card given to me.  It is entitled “One Life”, don’t know the author is but I like it, for it cuts down to the bare bones a single, very, important life, and care to guess whose? 

One Life

He was born in a stable,

In an obscure village,

the child of a peasant woman.

From there He traveled,

Less than 200 miles.

He never wrote a book.

He never held an office.

He did none of the things one

usually associates with greatness.

He became a nomadic preacher,

Popular opinion turned against Him,

He was betrayed by a close friend,

And His other friends ran away.

He was unjustly condemned to death,

Crucified on a cross among common thieves,

On a hill overlooking the town dump,

And when dead, laid in a borrowed grave.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone,

Empires have risen and fallen,

Mighty armies have marched,

And powerful rulers have reigned.

Yet no one has affected men as much as He,

He is the central figure of the human race,

He is the Messiah, the Son of God,

JESUS CHRIST. 

            I have had this for around ten years, and the humbleness of it always strikes me.  We have all read or heard rag to riches stories, where someone born in poverty makes it big, example Marilyn Monroe, someone who had nothing, makes it to stardom, and has everything one could want.   It makes good press, but someone who had nothing, died with nothing, had to borrow a grave to bury him in, and yet everyone knows his name?  Does that make sense?  He never wrote a book, a paragraph or a single sentence, but has had volumes written about his actions and what he is reported to have said.  He wasn’t a world traveler or explorer, just wandered around, and yet is known in all four corners of the world, pretty impressive if you ask me.  What I really like about “One Life” is the simple statement of fact.  If you’re a Christian or not, a believer or not, a church going person or not, if you have different beliefs, that is your right, but in reading “One Life” one can see where humility and humbleness can take one. 

            I have had times of great fear in my life, when I got sober and had to face the law and the judge for my actions.  When I got orders to be a Drill Sergeant and wondered if I was good enough.  When I was being deployed to Bosnia and then to Kosovo, the fear of the unknown.  When I asked Kerstin (my ex-wife now) to marry me and wondered if I was a good enough man for her.  When I thought Kerstin might lose Meyra, our youngest daughter, due to bleeding, a great fear descended on my soul, that same fear when Kerstin called me and told me she had cancer, a very black night indeed.  The same type of fear when Kerstin and I talked about how our marriage was no longer working, and perhaps it was in the best interest of us all to quit living that lie. Through all those times I have reflected on the humbleness of ”One Life”  and prayed for the peace that comes from the knowledge of such inner serenity and what actions I needed to take to be of use.

            When my dad died, it seemed heaven got to be a place of interest to me.  When my oldest brother Bob, died and then when my next oldest brother Dennis past away, heaven did not seem like a bad place to live.  When I had the car accident in April this year, seemed like it was time for me to move residence, laughing, but that did not happen and I am still among you all.  But a funny thing, dying didn’t scare me, not then and not now after the accident.  It occurred to me one day, when back from the hospital, that the people I love all know that I love them, and I know that they love me.   That is not as bad thing to come to realize.  I don’t actively hate anyone.  No one is under my skin all day and night or living in my thoughts 24 hours a day.  I think that is a really good thing and lastly there was no burning amends to make on my part, I was as free from my past as I think humanly possible.  So dying did not scare me for I knew that people I love wait for me there, and that those I love here will eventually meet me there. That came partially from “One Life” when I think of how He died alone, and yet He knew He was going to see His Father.

            Weird as it may seem I have never feared for my health, kind of like not worrying about my sobriety.  Always figured my sobriety is my God’s and my sponsor’s job, my job is to be honest with them, and do what they tell me too.  Health, that’s God’s job (in my book) my job is to be honest with him and be smart (as much as possible) with what I have.  But I am wandering from the topic, when I have had great fear, you know, that big dark parallelizing type, I have not been shy about hitting my knees, thanking Him for his blessings and for what he has shown me in my life and to ask Him how I can be of service. For when I read “One Life” I think of what fear must He have had, but also how true to Himself, He must have been.      

            Chuck C once talked about ego, and in saying roughly “the only thing separating him from others or him from his God was his ego” Now, I have a healthy ego, those of you who know me, understand that.  But in my understanding there is nothing wrong in a healthy ego, if it is held in check with an honest understanding of who is in charge.  I know who is in charge and I know who supplies me with the serenity to meet the insanity my brain and my emotions produce when faced with calamity.  Sometimes it is hard to get past my ego to get to Him, but it is amazing how fear and pain will motivate me. I am such a wimp.  But here “One Life” really comes into play for me in that He was without ego, for that I think is the definition of humility, doing God’s work, i.e. helping others , just for the sake of doing it, not for the pat on the back.  Just for the pure satisfaction of trying to please Him is enough…………………………………………………………….

Now it has been almost four years since I wrote Christmas Day 2007, and I like to reread my thoughts and see if they hold true.  It nice to be able to report, that my thoughts on “One Life” are still the same.  I still read it daily and ponder it’s many meanings to me. 

My Little Sisterhood.

My Own Personal Little Sisterhood…LOL

        I cannot pin a date on when, but it must be over 15 yrs ago, that I started using the term “little sister”.  It is a term personal to me in its meaning.  I currently have a large group of little sisters, and they know they are my little sisters because that is how I address them when talking to them.

The idea was planted in my brain when I first got sober.  When I got sober (through God’s Grace naturally), I had a lot of issues, LOL, everything from alcohol, financial, legal, and family to physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and sexual. (I guess you could say every aspect of my life had turned to shit, guess that’s why they call it a bottom.) Now I like to fix things, and when I got sober I wanted to fix all these areas. I was going to do sober, better, faster and more successfully than everyone else. (ok little ego problem there) And then my sponsor pointed out that I could not fix any of these problems, all I could do was take the right, proper action (footwork) and trust in God to do the rest.

Now when I drank, I was a drunken little dog looking for a leg to hump.  When I got sober, I was a sober little dog looking for a leg to hump. (kind of blunt but that’s the truth of it) Now when I got sober I was sick, I had not learned, let alone taken any actions, on the tools laid out in the big book.  But there were some things I could do.  I could stay out of relationships (especially sexual relationships) till I had worked on my sobriety some.  I could get to know the person, develop a friendship before waking up with them in bed next to me. I could learn to take into consideration who they are instead of only looking at my wants and taking action.  These were some seriously drastic changes in my thought and action patterns, LOL.       

I was 27 almost 28 years old when I got sober, and in my initial sobriety I met and befriended two very lovely young women.  The first had gotten sober just before me, and the second had gotten sober just after I had.  These two young ladies, (think they were 26 and 22 at the time) were the first of my little sisters, (although I had not thought of that term yet). For my first year in sobriety, they were little stars that shown in my galaxy and to this day I still pray and thank God for having them in my life.  The first one was in hindsight, outside of family, the first woman I can honestly say that l loved. Loved her for who she was; the person, not the body. Oh and by the way they were both extremely attractive. They were both two young ladies that I could ask myself, what could I do for them, and not expect anything from them in return. They both allowed me to learn about myself and about my relationships with women, without fear.  I do not think they realized any of this while it was happening, and I only saw it in hindsight, but I thank God for them.

Now since then, many things have come to shape this little sister mentality I have developed.  A book I like to read once and awhile says “that all men are my brothers” so I take that to mean then, that all women are my sisters. Now in sobriety I have met many women; young, old, in sobriety, just normal types, some hurt emotionally, some not.  Some I have dated, some were just casual, some were sexual in nature, and some were not.  I have gotten married, separated and now divorcing. I have pretty much run the gambit on relationships. 

Little sisters are a totally different ball of wax.  They are women who when I meet them, something just clicks inside me.  They do not fall into the dating / sexual mold.  They do not fall into the friend / acquaintance mold.  They are women who I feel become part of my extended family.  I think of them as little sisters (and age doesn’t matter) and I am their older brother.  They are women who I like to tease, have coffee with, have dinner with, but more in the big brother to little sister way. Those whom life I enjoy hearing about, wishing them the best and doing what I can to be of help. When I call someone a little sister, they might just assume it is a cute term, but to me, it really is a term of affection and love.  I know what the term means to me, so when I use it, it is intentional, with thought behind it, not just a random wording.

This has made my life a whole lot easier to live, which is why I do it. I no longer have to keep score, or notches on the bedpost. I can treat women as ladies and not objects.  I am able to separate those I would like to get to know in a more personal way from those I like as a person. It helps me to do away with game playing and keep my life simple, honest and useful. I think that is how this God of my understanding likes it.  So that is how my little sisterhood began and what it means to me.       

Christmas with my Girls

Christmas with my Girls,

            Ok, so I sometimes like to think of myself as an ol fart. Hey it comes in handy when I do something stupid but it’s also nice when it comes to memories.  So here is another one, the last one gave me a warm fuzzy so I figured I would try for two.  The perception I have received from sobriety is a great gift from my God.

            Now, my wife and I are separated, divorcing and whenever I look on the news all I seem to hear about are horror stories from quote “Broken homes” unquote.  So, naturally being born to worry and fret, I have always been concerned about the effect this has on our daughters.  Having one teenager, and one almost teenager, it seems sometimes the most I can get answer wise, is “I’m fine”, “school was good” and my favorite “whatever”. The one syllable burp type thing.  With my oldest daughter, I was always worried about what the world would do to her when she got out in it. With my youngest daughter, (who seems to follow after her papa in the emotional, mental way) I was always little scared for the world about what she was going to do to it.  Well I am going to share a memory that kind of put all that worry to rest, the whole ball of it kind of slipped away.  It is a Christmas memory and I love Christmas.

            One day, on a weekend I think, for it was in the afternoon, I took my daughters onto post to do some Christmas shopping at the Post Exchange.  This was a year or so after my wife and I had separated, and after my recovery from my car accident. Two rather big and traumatic events in their lives, (mine also lol), so I was hoping to make this a kind of stress free, relaxing Christmas. Now, I have not had a lot of those, there always seems to be the money worries, the “did I get the right present” worry, did I get them too much? Not enough? Any parent I think understands those worries. I never care what I get for Christmas, for me it has always been about the gift of Love, and the giving not receiving, but I (like any father) wants to do the best I can at this time of year. So the gift I got just stunned me silent, making me wish I could hold time in my hand to cherish that particular moment forever.  As we walked past the first or second isle in the store, an elderly man was walking past us, his hand-held shopping basket kind of full. As he past me, something fell out of his basket, and as is my normal way of it, I started to turn around to pick it up for him.  As I turned around, I saw my daughters, both of them, reaching for the item and returning it to him, nicely, politely and courteously, like it was the normal, right thing to do.  At that moment, in that instant, God let me know I had nothing to worry about when it came to my daughters.  If they could at that time, full of the shopping Christmas spirit, in the ready to shop mode…. just stop and do the naturally decent correct thing, then I had nothing to worry about.  It was one of the best Christmas presents I can remember.  It seems that my ex wife and I are (have to add with a little of God’s help) raising two rather nice, pleasant, well adjusted daughters who, when I talk about them, I imagine a little of the pride and love seeps out… embarrasses them I think, I get a lot of the “oh Papa” comments from both of them. Kind of puts the lesson of “no greater love than from a parent to their child” or in the blessings I receive from my God, in sobriety, to not only see, but recognize and remember.   Now I never mentioned this memory to my daughters, I doubt they would remember for it was just a normal type thing to do and that’s what makes it so special a memory to me.

            Ah, the joys of memories, guess next time I should make it a bitter sweet one…have couple of those too..lol… such is the nature of Life.

Random thoughts and meandering ponderings..

RANDOM THOUGHTS PICKED UP ALONG THE WAY…..

I was taught when I got sober, that my sobriety was based on the continued grow of my spirituality, kind of like at the end of “How It Works” “C. God could and would if He were sought.”  Now none of these are original, , (well most of them are not) I am just not that smart or wise but over the years they have grown to mean more to me as I “seek”.

LOVE: (Webster’s deffiniton): the fatherly concern of God for man; man’s adoration of God.

-          Doing something for someone else, with no expectation of anything in return.

-          Missing their presence in my life. (my deff.)

Being a father myself, I can understand the concern, the doing and the missing; this one has always been nice for me to look at.

God’s Will; will not take me anywhere that God’s Grace will not protect me.  (When I am trying to do the right thing, but fear crops up, it is nice to remember that I am not in charge.)

 How do I know it works? I’ve never had it so good. (something to remember when I get to patting myself on the back to hard for being such a wonderful person, I am not the one to take the credit, or when the shit hits the fan, I need to remember that this too shall pass, and to look at it from the proper perspective, which is I am sober, and this is most likely another mountain in the drivers window that will be a mole hill in the rear view mirror once it passes)

When I go into tomorrow, I go alone, my God lives in today.  (Many times in my life, I have been scared of what the future has in store.  I have to remember I only do the footwork, God deals in the results.  I may not get what I want, things may not turn out for what I see is the better, but in hindsight, things have always turned out, Right. When I asked my wife to marry me, when we almost lost our youngest daughter in pregnancy, when my wife had cancer, when my Dad died, when I bought a house, when I retired from the military, the two times I lost my brothers, moving to Germany, separating and divorcing my wife, almost dying when I had hernia surgery, the different military, Army, deployments, and it played a real big part, when, for a second I died as a result of a car accident.  These were all scary times, and fear raised its ugly head on each and every one of them. But I had to remember, physically remind myself, that all I could do was the foot work, take one step in front of the other, and to trust this God of my understanding, and I can say for 100% that it has always ended for the best, maybe not what I wanted, but what was Right.

When I feel guilty, chances are I am guilty.  (Ok, now I never like to admit when I am wrong or have hurt someone, and for the most part it is never intentionally, but I do make mistakes, and I do hurt people, I am human.  But what I have had to do is to stop rationalizing it, sharing the blame etc etc etc. I know when I have done something wrong, I feel bad, guilty if you will. And if I feel that way then I need to look at it, man up to it if need be, and try to make it right if possible.  That is what I think this God of my understanding wants of me, and I feel better when I do.)

There is no such thing as a small act of kindness. (I have learned in this life, drinking and sober, that there is no way I can tell what effect my actions will have on someone else, so I had best make them good, honorable actions.  Sometimes, something that seems small to me may be very large to someone else.  I try to leave all those I touch in a day with a smile on their face, or the feeling that it was nice to have contact, interaction, with them.  Some days the best gift I can give is a smile.  Funny thing about a smile, when I give one, I usually get one back.)

And the last one for now……

If you pray, why worry? If you worry why pray?  (Either I believe God is sufficient onto all my needs or I don’t.  If I ask for God’s help, really, then I need to believe it is there.  Not like He has ever left me a note under my pillow or a message on my voice mail.  If I ask for his guidance and direction, then I need to act as just that, I am under his guidance and direction. I need to quit worrying so much and get about doing the foot work to get the job done, my God is not going to do for me what I can do for myself, He is there to give me guidance, direction, strength, and love to see me through the task at hand, so why use up all my energy on worry, it does me no good, benefits’ nothing, and basically lets me lose sleep, and I love to sleep…lol…my God works 24 hours a day)

Just some meandering, ponderings, and random thoughts.

Ponderings on Faith

Ponderings on Faith

            I like to ponder on things over coffee and cigarettes.  Some of the things I like to ponder on are faith, prayer, belief, actions and gratitude.  I was raised by my parents with a set of beliefs.  Very good beliefs, and for many years I believed that I had lived up to them.  But through the course of sobriety I had to look at them, look at where I had fallen short of them, and then look at why.  Now I am a pretty normal guy, and I don’t like to look at my failings as a person, let alone as a man, so if I had to do this, there must have been a pretty good reason as to why. The reason is unless I look at it, my chances of any real; long lasting sobriety is slim to none.  I cannot continue to relive the mistakes of the past or set myself up for failure.  A definition of insanity being “doing the same things over and over again expecting different results”.  So I need to look, ponder, reflect, bounce off my sponsor, and if need be, change my actions to reflect my belief.

            For as I have said I am a pretty simple guy and this is my take on it.  My actions are direct reflections of my beliefs. If I lie, then what my actions are saying is that I believe it is ok to lie.  And if I believe it is ok, then how can I get upset when someone lies to me?   I keep it just that simple, and no, I do not believe it is ok to lie.  It is a matter of making sure my house is in order. For when I drank I was a great one for “do as I say, not as I do”, it was a lot easier than living up to the moral code I thought I had.

            Now the pondering part of it:  I believe that gratitude is an action.  If I am grateful for my job, then I should show up on time, dressed appropriately, ready to work.  If I am grateful for my car, then I should keep it clean and in good working order.  That is pretty simple.  Now like I mentioned: if gratitude is an action, and action is direct reflection of my belief, if I pray to be a good man, a good father, a good friend, and a good person trying to do the next right thing, then the actions I take, should be that of a good person. So if I pray to be patient, then my belief is that patience is a good thing, then the action I should take is to be patient, which, when I am being patient, then I am also being grateful for the gift of patience, which I did not have without His help (as based on my previous actions, in my drinking life), which leads me to faith, not only in patience, but in the process by which patience was obtained, prayer, belief, action, gratitude and lastly faith.  The faith coming as a result of seeing how being patient was beneficial in my daily life, and that if I take this action, this what the result will be.

            So that is how my faith in this God of my understanding has developed. Through using the process I just described in all aspects of my life, I end up by default developing a faith in the God of my understanding. It is through seeing the results of these different actions I have taken, that I did not believe to be useful or needed, but I took as a result of the instructions of others (sponsor, Big Book etc.) because the actions I was use to taking (my own warped ideas) didn’t work.  When I look and ponder on these results, I can see that my life has gotten better and that I enjoy the person I am becoming.  More importantly, it adds depth to this faith in my God that allows me to take actions based on this faith, not necessarily on the known facts.  This is a growing thought process so I am pretty sure more to follow.

            I like to ponder so I will soon post some more ponderings.

Though the eyes of a Child

 

Through the Eyes of a Child

It is kind of nice to some days just relax, have a cup of coffee, sit down to write, and kind of feel chit-chattery, in a talking /writing sort of mood.  There have been a lot of by-products of sobriety over the last twenty-two years.  The desire to learn more of this God of my understanding, the more easy going, less stress induced life, the change of perception of my reality, from inward to look outward and seeing the Life surrounding me, and of course the memories.  The A.A. Big Book tells me my past will be come my most cherished asset, that I will no longer wish to shut the door on it.  I know that to be true, but also I know not only do I have the memories of my drinking days but also the days since, the sober days.   I have, in sobriety, tried to develop a simple, easy, almost child like way of looking at life and my God.

Now, I have many memories that stick out in sobriety, that show me my God’s love for me, but they also show me the change in perception the being sober has wrought in me.  This is one such memory, and it is cherished by me above and beyond any human price tag.  Here it goes:

“I remember one day, in early fall, my oldest daughter having just started kindergarten.  We had just moved from Germany to Colorado Springs, Colorado and her command of English was still not going to well.  She had wanted to ride the bus to school, so my wife, our youngest daughter and I had walked her down to the school bus stop, and watched her get on the bus and depart for school. Well, the day past and the time came to pick here up from the bus stop.  As she exited the bus, it was easy to see she was upset and that things had not gone well.  The noise on the bus, the language difficulty and the full day of school had all taken its toll on my sweetheart and she was in tears.  There was little that we parents could do to console our oldest, but at that moment our two year old daughter walked over to her, took her hand, and started the block walk back to home.  Walking behind them I was struck with the thought that sometimes God is best seen thought the eyes of a child.  For no amount of talking brought relief to my daughter’s pain.  It was the loving act of her sister, holding her hand.  God’s love was easy to see on that sunny fall afternoon.”

I have many more memories to share, but this is one of my favorites. This one has taught me many lessons over the years, and reminds me to stick to the basics and to keep it simple.  God’s love is not difficult or complex, it just is. 

Be Still and Know.....

Be Still and Know That I am God

This line always makes me smile. 

It is so simple and yet so powerful. 

My life sometimes seems so chaotic and hectic, like the eye of a tornado, watching everything around me spin in a weird sort of madness.  Even though I may not be directly involved, I still am drawn up into the whirlwind around me.  A powerful and helpful not tool but more like lesson I have learned is to relax.  To take a deep breath and realize it is just not so dam important.  It may be important in the day to day business of life but in the long run, not so much. The mountain in front of me is almost always a mole hill in my rearview mirror.  An old army saying: there is no blood on the battlefield, helps me remember if it didn’t kill me it’s not so bad.

            I went to a spiritual retreat in Louisiana one time.  It was an interesting experience, but the lesson I took away from it was that half way through the retreat, the leader of the retreat did an exercise where in he asked everyone to close their eyes and feel the serenity in the room.  Then he told everyone, to remember that feeling and when you get stressed during the day to remember back to that feeling of serenity and to let it engulf you.  Funny thing is, it worked.  Now I had only been sober a couple of years at the time, my life still a mess from my drinking days with my amends still looking at me in the horizon, so it was very comforting to feel at peace and ease.   

            As is the case in my sobriety, when I find something that works I keep with it.  If it’s not broken why fix it?  Through the course of the steps, once I had started to look at this higher power, God of my understanding thing, I found I wanted to learn more.  When I feel myself being irritable, restless or discontent, that alcoholic feeling, it is letting me know that something in my life is not right.  When I get that feeling, I need to look and see what is going on.  What facet of my life is out of whack?  Sometimes it is just the fact that my life is going smoothly, but since I was use to living in such chaos, that normal does not feel comfortable.  Little story: I called my sponsor one day, had about two yrs sobriety, and told him that I was having a normal nice day.  Nothing traumatic, nothing wonderful, just an ordinary good day, his reply was “Good, that is what you are suppose to have, now keep your finger out of the toilet and don’t stir up any shit”.  Sobriety is supposed to bring about that normal day type thing, where I quit shooting myself in the foot and get about the business of living.  My life gets better, my ability to live life and enjoy it gets better, and it is suppose to, it is a byproduct of being sober.

So how does this relate to “Be Still and Know That I am God” and how does that fit into my daily life? In the morning I take time to reflect on the coming day and in the evening I review my day.  In doing so, I am mentally and spiritually preparing myself for the day and seeing in the evening where, if at all, I have fallen short of my goals from the morning.   Still where does the “Be Still” part come to play?  Ok, so in the morning when I am having my coffee and morning cigarette, I try, not always successfully but more often now than in my early sobriety, to empty my mind, relax my thinking, remember what my purpose in Life is, and remember and establish a contact with this God of my understanding.  My God is a father, and I think he likes it when I check in with him and let him know how I am doing.  It is not like he doesn’t know; I just think like any father, he likes his kids to keep in contact.  Over the years, for this did not happen for me overnight, there has been an increasing flow of serenity.   The pool inside my soul no longer has white caps, no drowning waves, but has increasingly been smooth and un-rippled.  Oh occasionally, there is a storm front or the water gets to churning, but when that happens, no matter the time of day, I take shelter from the storm, talk to my Father, try to be still, and remember there is but one and that with His help I can make it through whatever faces me and to have trust in Him.

There is a great power in not running the show, or in being in charge.  A freedom to act and be of use knowing that as long as I am doing the right thing and have faith and trust, it will turn out the way it is suppose to.  I may not get the results that I want, but I get the right results according to what my God wants.  All I am required to do is the footwork; he is responsible for the result.  In other words: “The good I Do, I don’t; the Father Doest the work.”  During the day, I know when I am on track and doing the right thing, because my soul is at peace; and when my soul (or conscious, if you will) is in turmoil, it usually means I am doing what I should not, and should stop it. At night as I get ready to sleep and review my day, I put everything in front of Him, and those things that are still troublesome, I put on my mental bookshelf, and let Him deal with it during the course of the night. (after all he does work 24 hours a day).

Now this may seem rather simplistic, and it is and it works, which is why i do it.  But it falls in line with my thinking of “thorough the eyes of a child.”, but more on that later.

Quo Vadimus

This book is dedicated to the following, my daughters Tabea and Meyra, my ex-wife Kerstin, my mother, Eleanor, the three sponsors I have had the privilege of knowing in my sobriety, Larry, Mark, and Ray and those that I had the honor of sponsoring, especially, Simone, Sabina (Sam) and TJ (Trevor). All of the above have shown me a different and wonderful facet of love, and for that I am truly grateful to my God, thank you

Preface:

It is not my intent to write a “self-help” book. I am perhaps the most helpless person I know, so I doubt that my knowledge would be of any use in the help department. Nor is it my intent to write another book on the topic of the twelve steps and how to, etc, etc, etc, if you want that, read the Big Book or go to any treatment center and grab one of their handy dandy do it yourself, fill in the blank, checklists. What I hope this turns out to be is my experience in life, and how the tools I have acquired in sobriety have helped me to live a rather joyous and full life. This is a book I will pass on to my daughters, and those I sponsor, of my journey in sobriety. That they may learn from my mistakes, and through the course of reading this book, learn a little of what has taken me twenty-two years, so far, to piece together, and save them a little of the hassle and pain that came with these lessons.

This is a book about belief, my beliefs and experiences. As such I will try to back up my beliefs with bits and pieces of my life that have led to me to believe as I do. It is not up for interpretations or debate, as my experiences are just that, my experiences, and are not conjecture or theory but memories of the life I have lived up to now. Thrown in with my beliefs are a few facts that I know to be true. The first is that God is good. All other facts that I have learned and all my beliefs stem from this primary truth. The second is that God is love, undiluted, one hundred percent pure, no room for anything else, Love. This truth is known to my heart, but my mind still has trouble grasping the fullness of it. The God of my understanding is neither male nor female, but for the purpose of this book I will use the male vernacular.

Well, it has been about four years since I started this book. Funny thing happened. I almost died. Yep, car accident, weeks in an induced coma, couple weeks being paralyzed and couple weeks getting my brain to work. Was about 2 to 3 minutes away from being dead (actually less than that, for a split second I had no brain activity), very strange because I have no memory yet of this event. Oh well, I am sure I will remember in God’s time, when it is time for me to, not before or after.

Unmanageability: Whose life is unmanageable? Not Mine!

Sanity: Didn’t need it then, why now?

            I almost died.   Funny how those words look on paper, but the reality of it is, that I was as close to having someone pull a sheet over my head as you can get.  The doctors at the hospital did not think I would last the week.  Daily, they told my ex-wife that I was going to die. This went on for two weeks and yet every day my lungs kept going up and down and my heart kept beating (thank you machines).  Crushed skull, induced coma, paralysis on my left side was what they saw.  Obviously, since I am still among the living, it was not my time to be with Him yet, for if He had thought so, I surely would be among the deceased and not the living.  This is in by no means a statement that I have some special gift or mission from God.  It means that I am dam lucky to be alive and I really should avoid getting into car accidents in the future.  I don’t read anything into it except that I should count my blessings and say a very loud thank you.

            I truly am blessed, but not in the way most might think. That is to be alive, but I am sober, which use to not be the case. I live the life I always wanted to, happy for the most part and grateful most of the time.  I have two daughters who are turning out to be great young women.  I have an ex-wife who is a dear friend.  I work in a job where I get to help people, doing something that keeps me interested in the work at hand. 

            In the seventeenth year of my sobriety, the following happened: my thirty something cousin, high on dope, I think, committed suicide; my uncle, died because of alcohol induced or related  side effects; my marriage of 8 years (at the time) imploded and dissolved; my brother, at Christmas time, died of a heart attack, at the age 52, probably helped by his past battles with alcohol and drugs; then on April 2, 2007, I was driving into town with my oldest daughter in the back seat, and was pushed off the road by another driver not looking where she was going.   Faced with the decision of hitting her and her car, the truck I was passing, or trying to make it to safety by driving and stopping on the side of the road, I chose the later, and ended up driving off the road, rolling the car, and hitting a large non-break away road sign.  Big sucker too, road sign was large.  By God’s grace, my daughter was not hurt.  I, on the other hand, had the roof the car smack my skull and crack it open, and was left to die, kind of.  For you see, my God, works in peculiar ways.   The car behind me stopped, and the driver was a hairdresser, and I think some sort of paramedic and he basically kept me alive till the police and medical help arrived. His wife and him are also the only reason I know what happened for I have no, none, zip, memory of what happened.  God spared me that pain for the time being.  But having no memory left me with doubts.  Had I done something that almost killed my daughter?  Thankfully it has come out that the accident was due to no fault of my own, his own statement and the police report, state there was basically nothing I could have done to avoid what happened.  So while life had said it was my turn to have a car accident, God worked in his way, to give me the help I needed to see it though to the best result possible.  So let’s take a look at unmanageability and where admission of that fact has led me in this life.

            So life is unmanageable by me, alone.  No surprise there, is there?  I mean most of us like to think we have some control over our lives.  The way I drank showed I was powerless over alcohol, but it took some work to get unmanageable into my system.  I always put it down to bad breaks, if only things had worked out differently.  Toward the end of my drinking I missed the cut off for promotion to Staff Sergeant by one point.  Reason enough for a good drunk, I mean one point, come on, waiting all that time and it came down to one point.  Instead of looking for where I could gain a point, I thought of who was to blame.  I can give you a hint, my name wasn’t on that list.  So instead of working to find a point, I worked on a bottle of Jim Beam.  Didn’t get me promoted, but it did keep me from looking at the mess my life had become for a couple of months at least.  I never wanted to look at my responsibility in any matter of my life.  Work, play or family, I was a go-to guy who could be counted on or so I had convinced myself and so I never had to look at my mistakes, only find those in others and exploit them to my advantage. 

            Interesting thing about mistakes is that they have a tendency to accumulate and then hit all at once.   It was just that way with me, when I hit my personal bottom and got sober.  Thing is, one doesn’t look for a solution, unless on has a problem.  So as the beginning of the first step says” Who cares to admit complete defeat? Practically no one, of course. Every natural instinct cries out against the idea of personal powerlessness. It is truly awful to admit that, glass in hand, we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of Providence can remove it from us. No other kind of bankruptcy is like this one. Alcohol, now become the rapacious creditor, bleeds us of all self-sufficiency and all will to resist its demands. Once this stark fact is accepted, our bankruptcy as going human concerns is complete.” My personal bottom was my last drunk driving offence, a broken relationship, broke monetarily, humanity wise, and when drunk, thinking that suicide was an option.  Holding my ex girlfriend off the floor in both arms and looking at the plate glass window and realizing that I had thought of harming her, and seeing myself as I truly was, at that moment in time, woke me up partially.  For this was not the first time I had been broke, or had a falling out with a girlfriend, or even gotten into legal trouble from my drinking, but it was the first time I had thought of violence especially toward someone else.   All of it related to my drinking, so being locked into a treatment center for the military, a result of a DUI that I received on 1 April 1989 (April Fool’s day) while driving after my promotion party to see this ex girl friend, having a chance to seriously look at my life, gave me the opportunity to see what real choices I had. 

            I only had two real choices.  Stay sober or drink.  I knew I could go through the treatment program, be considered cured, as far as the Army was concerned, and then move on to the next duty station and pick up a drink or I could stay sober.  Not as strange as it sounded.  For, while in the treatment center, I was exposed to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) for the first time, and found that I liked what they had to offer. First, they use to drink just like me, glass in hand with or without a good reason, just to drink.  Second, they did insane things while drinking, just like I had done, which while they were drunk made perfect sense to them.  Strangely, it made sense to me also, scary that.  And lastly, while they still had the problems life threw at them, they did not need to drink in order to get through them, and they seemed to be able to handle them with a degree of dignity that I did not possess.  So I was curious.  After my last DUI, I did not know if I would be allowed to stay in the Army.  They frown on those DUI’s, especially when it’s not your first and as you get higher in rank, they expect you to maintain a degree of decorum. I was facing a mandatory jail sentence from the state of Hawaii for driving with no insurance, 3^rd time I had gotten caught on that, and all sorts of legal and civilian expenses. It would have been a good time to escape, and drink.  Weird as it sounds, an old army saying helped me and that was my fun meter was peaked out, and all I could do was laugh.  Realizing I had absolutely no control or power in that situation I did the one thing I could think about, follow my sponsor’s suggestion, get a lawyer.  Thankfully the court saw I was sober and my lawyer did his plea bargain thing and I was only tagged with the drunken driving charge.  Now I went to court roughly 4 months after the DUI, and my arresting officer was there to testify if needed.  We talked after court and he commented on my general appearance and asked how I was doing.  I said I had gotten sober and his reply surprised me, saying “that it was good” because he remembered me and how rough I had looked when he had arrested me.  What surprised me was that he remembered me after 4 months and what got me thinking was, how bad must I have looked for him to remember me? What also occurred to me at that time was no one was asking me to out and party with them.  The friends I still had were all glad I was sober and did not drink.  They could see the physical and mental difference in me.  As a matter of fact, no one that ever saw me drink has ever offered me a drink since I got sober.