Gotta Little Martyr in ya?

We made mad love, Shadow love, Random love, And abandoned love... Accidentally like a martyr. The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder

 -  Warren Zevon

Once while chatting with another AA, she was telling me that us AA's have a bit of Al-Anon in us. Meaning that we are also EXTREMELY capable of being enablers ourselves. I had never given it much thought. She was in fact, very right. We're good at going around putting ourselves in positions to get hurt, and then once we're hurt, might want to extract revenge. A really scheming conniving drunk might just do such a sick minded thing.

We also want to be problem fixers.  There might be those of us that get married or have relationships so that we can feel good about ourselves after we've "fixed" our mate.  Talk about a formula for disappointment.  But us humans DO these crazy things. 

I'll try and not "FIX" someone, and accept them how they are. 

Photo:  Some rights reserved by James Clayton

Qualifications

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
 - Albert Einstein

All you got to do is turn on the news and you're bound to see someone that's qualifying themselves to spend some time in AA. If you've read the big book, and the stories at the end of it, or even spend some time over on aagrapevine.org you'll see how it's done. If you're really needy to see stupid drunk tricks, just Google "Stupid Drunk Tricks" or use your imagination, you'll find some stellar examples.

I'm thankful today that I stopped qualifying in the "Stupid Drunk" race. 

Photo:  Some rights reserved by UtopianLibrary

Pink Clouds

There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.
 - Victor Hugo

There are mysterious things that happen to us when we first become sober. Most of us are familiar with the "pink clouds" of just feeling good, feeling good to be clean and that something good is happening to us, and our lives. 

I recall having an incident with the law, that cost me a little over a weeks pay, and a real inconvenience to myself and to my employer.  But the incident caused me to spend 24 hrs with another AA, who had a lot of sobriety. 

I learned from that, and think that the God of my understanding was giving me some guidance with my life, and with what I should be doing. 

I'm glad to have other sober souls in my life to help guide me along the way. 

* Photo Credit http://www.flickr.com/people/borkurdotnet/

A Life Worth Living For

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

- William James

One of the nicest things about getting sober, and setting things right, is once in awhile, you'll get a GOOD letter from a government agency. One that isn't asking for money, but actually is a refund. Granted, it'll be used to pay another one. But it's cool.

Yea, that's cool.

It's nice when Peter sends you the money to pay Paul...

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by steeleman204

An Eye For an Eye

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
- Mohandas Gandhi

We had to see that when we harbored grudges and planned revenge for such defeats, we were really beating ourselves with the club of anger we had intended to use on others. - Page 47 of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Revenge is such a dangerous thing. And it can backfire so easily. Drunks have sat around planning and scheming revenge with righteous vigor. But we're all connected, we're only hurting ourselves when we're planning these things.

Remember the Spy vs Spy of Mad Magazine? - It seems that neither one of those dudes, the white spy or the black spy ever got the upper hand.

It makes me think about M.A.D. Also known as Mutual Assured Destruction... What good does it do? Other then keep people busy building a bigger and more destructive bomb? This is crazy talk.

Today would be a good day for me to let my higher power take over revenge.

* Photo Credit