Life: Shot out of a Cannon.

"Some people will tell you that slow is good – but I’m here to tell you that fast is better. I’ve always believed this, in spite of the trouble it’s caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba…"
- Hunter S. Thompson

Ever think you were living "Life in the Fast Lane"? I thought I was.  I tried. I also seemed to run out of gas while doing it. AND, I was to stubborn to notice. 

Just like a machine, the human body can only handle being at MAX WARP for a short period of time. I think that I thought that I'd "Let The Good Times Roll", even tho' I thought I was in the fast lane, I might have been, but I had run out of steam. Things just weren't fun anymore.  "In Spite of all the Trouble"... Maybe that "Trouble" was the warning sings that you weren't doing it right anymore. But the insanity of Alcoholism will get us to try to drive over that pot hole in the driveway again, but maybe THIS time it won't be so bad because we're really going to floor it this time, and will "catch some air" over the hole.  Never mind the fact that we might need to stop in 10 feet.   DOH!

Once again, I need to slow down and live life on life's terms. 

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Disclaimer: This blog is not an official blog of AA or any other organization, it's simply a fellowship recovering souls sharing their experiences, strength and hope. We encourage you to comment or to share your own experiences. Please feel free to Sign up to our email list to get these postings in your inbox.

Fighting With Strangers

Marriage is nature's way of keeping us from fighting with strangers.- Alan King

Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex; who bewail the institution of marriage; who think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes. ... We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. - Page 69 of the Big Book.

I don't usually want to post time sensitive information on the blog, but I did see something today, that most likely was sparked by the Gay Marriages in NY just recently. I see it as another way of saying, "Live And Let Live"

Don't like gay marriages? Don't get one.

Don't like abortions? Don't get one. 

Don't like sex? Don't have it.

Don't like drugs? Don't do them.

Don't like porn? Don't watch it.

Don't like alcohol? Don't drink it.

Don't like guns? Don't buy one.

Don't like your rights taken away?

Don't take away someone else's.

Today I won't try to judge others, as I don't like to be judged myself. 

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Disclaimer: This blog is not an official blog of AA or any other organization, it's simply a fellowship recovering souls sharing their experiences, strength and hope. We encourage you to comment or to share your own experiences. Please feel free to Sign up to our email list to get these postings in your inbox.

When in doubt.. Listen

The truth is that parents are not really interested in justice. They just want quiet.
 - Bill Cosby

 I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me. Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive. But that would be in great measure.    - Page 13 of the Big Book. 

I'ts kind of hard to get some good clean thinking done when our brains are a mess. Meditation, or prayer will help clean up the mental garage.  If you're inclined to be more Judea Christian, then prayer, a little quite time for you to talk to God, and listen. If you're more inclined to like a more eastern religious approach, then simple meditation, but you still listen.  Both methods have worked for people. I'm sure that there are other methods, with pretty much the same idea and outcome. They're Just slightly different takes on how to get one's brain properly re-booted.

I need to take time to sit quietly, each day, and converse with my Higher Power. 

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Disclaimer: This blog is not an official blog of AA or any other organization, it's simply a fellowship recovering souls sharing their experiences, strength and hope. We encourage you to comment or to share your own experiences. Please feel free to Sign up to our email list to get these postings in your inbox.

Recoil...As From A Hot Flame

...And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. 

- Page 84, Alcoholics Anonymous

I've noticed in my own sobriety, that Alcohol doesn't hold the fascination for me that it once did. I'm one of the lucky ones. In my final bouts with becoming sick and tired, I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired that when I gave up, I was finished. Done for. I could NOT handle life on life's terms while drinking.  Even sober, I've got days that are difficult.  I'm still sick in the head. Twisted. I suppose I'm an ass still, but maybe a twisted ass with less of an rough edge, and a lot more humor. 

I'm not tempted to drink.  I've brought and bought beer for my Boss, for his party. Holding that sick, (sorry a slip on my part) holding that six pack and taking it to his party didn't bother me. Also it didn't bother me that I was might be enabling him either, as that six pack might last him a couple or three days.   He's really weird that way.  I don't understand it.  I DO understand, however,  that _I_ am not able to be like him.  And I'm good with that. 

Today, I'm glad that I'm not easily tempted by my ex-friend, Alcohol.  I know that life would just blow up in my face if I were. 

Disclaimer: This blog is not an official blog of AA or any other organization, it's simply a fellowship recovering souls sharing their experiences, strength and hope. We encourage you to comment or to share your own experiences.  Please feel free to Sign up to our email list to get these postings in your inbox.

Happy Rust Buckets

As iron is eaten away by rust, so the envious are consumed by their own passion.
 - Antisthenes

Man, I'll tell ya, I really love not having a car payment. But that means that in the area that I live in, I'll have a rust bucket of a car after it starts to age a bit. And it's going to need repairs now and then. That's ok. I don't need a car that's pretty, I just need a simple one that does what it's supposed to do, and that's to get me to and fro with a minimum of hassle.  I do not envy those that have a new car, as I don't have the payment that goes with it. I'm happy with what I have. And that's cool. I find this way of thinking refreshing. 

The greatest enemies of us alcoholics are resentment, jealousy, envy, frustration, and fear. Wherever men are gathered together in business there will be rivalries and, arising out of these, a certain amount of office politics. Sometimes we alcoholics have an idea that people are trying to pull us down. Often this is not so at all. - Page 145 of the Big Book of AA

Today, I'm happy with what I have in life. I'm a lucky man.


Disclaimer, this blog is not an official blog of AA or any other organization, it's simply a fellowship of sharing experiences, strength and hope.  We encourage you to comment or to share your own experiences.  Sign up to our email list to get these postings in your inbox. 

If it Quacks like a Duck...

"If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."
- Douglas Adams

If some of us can recall, we weren't ready to be done drinking until we were GOOD and ready to be done with our drinking. And we weren't ready for someone else to tag a label on us, that we didn't think was ours.  I know I wasn't.  

I had to loose a great deal in order to get humble enough to become liberated by these words:  "Hi, I'm Randy, and I'm an Alcoholic" 

..And be careful not to brand him as an alcoholic. Let him draw his own conclusion.
Page 92 of the Big Book of AA.

Today, maybe I'm the only one that's quackers in a room full of ducks? 

I need to let the other ducks come to their own conclusions. 

It works if you're willing to take certain steps.....

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
 - Albert Einstein

When I first came to AA I was told to go by a Psychiatrist.  I had become an enigma, a puzzle to the Medical community.  I was told that no matter what I did in Life I had to stop drinking.

I had no clue as to how to live, let alone stay clean and sober.  To tell the truth I wasn't sure I wanted what AA had to offer.  I did like what y'all were saying.  And I identified right down the line about the insanity of use.

What I didn't want was to have to take the path you took to get there.  Who does?

When you're not sure you an Alkie/Addict, when you think that your problems are of others' making why would you want to change?

There is a way out.  There is a way to get out from underneath the weight of addiction and alcoholism.  There are actually more ways then one to get there.  

What is Insanity to an alkie?  Thinking that someday one can return to drink safely.

I had knowledge.

I had the will.

I had the hope.

What I didn't have was a trust in a Higher Power.

"Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense.  His defense must come from a Higher Power" - pg 43, Alcoholics Anonymous 

The insanity for me was trying to live the life style I had lived while drinking and drugging.  I had no regard for a "higher power".  Used to make supplications to my whiskey glass all the time.  I was praying to a poison.  sheeesh.  

The Steps are bringing me closer to contact with my Higher Power.

I'll just say this.....

My faith in a Power Greater Then Myself is restoring me to sanity.

That that Power has a plan for me is restoring me to sanity.

It's working for me.

How about you?

- Hitting a pot hole once is normal.  Hitting the same pot hole in your driveway every time is not normal.