These are some comments that I sent to a sponsee dealing with pain, both physical pain and depression.
Keep saying the serenity prayer like a mantra
The AABB teaches us that the primary causes of addictive behavior are resentment and fear. Pain is a huge cause of resentment and fear. We have to pray to have resentment and fear removed.
The AABB has specific prayers for this.
The resentment prayer is on p67:
"God please help me show _________ the same tolerance, pity, and patience I would cheerfully grant a sick friend. They [new singular they usage] are a sick person, place or thing. How can I be helpful to them? God save me from being angry. thy will be done" [paraphrased]
The fear prayer is on p68
"God please remove my fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be."
These prayers are at the heart of the psychic change we are seeking in program. Living on the basis of faith, rather than on the basis of resentment and fear and self-reliance.
Program does not remove physical pain, however it can remove emotions about the pain. Often those emotions are worse than the pain itself.
In m my person experience, though, my back pain is usually due to stress. Doing some stretching/yoga and relaxing my mind will help the spasming muscles to relax.
When we're abstinent we feel the feelings that we were eating down with the food. Being willing to feel these feelings, especially during the first 90 days, is another big part of program.
During the first 90 days, I thought that, if I didn't get my favorite trigger foods, I would run out into the street screaming and the neighbors would have to call the men in the little white coats to take me away.
I worked the tools, though: meetings, phone calls, etc. Those pulled me through until I got through the steps, which are very helpful with the emotions.
I had one sponsee who was in bed with depression for five months. Then we went through the steps in two and a half hours on the phone and she was able to leave her bed. It was amazing. Bill W was a great genius.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Bully for president
I’ve been having a number of painful Internet debates with the people who think that Hillary is a crook.
I don’t think she is a crook. I think she made some mistakes. These people don’t seem to understand the difference between making mistakes and committing a crime.
It’s painful debating these people, because they are invariably insulting and bullying. They are not able to have a civil conversation.
They also seem to believe that being smart means that you never make mistakes.
I had a flash of insight about these people. They must, like me, have grown up in families where making a mistake was regarded as intolerable; but, unlike me, they haven’t spent 11 years in 12 step programs trying to unlearn that false premise.
Being smart doesn’t mean that you don’t make mistakes. It means that you learn from them. It means that you learn complex material quickly, that your thinking is flexible.
If you grew up in an environment where mistakes were severely punished, it limits your ability to be creative and take risks. This limits your ability to achieve. It limits your intelligence.
When these people call me all manner of names, because I don’t agree with them, or tell me to leave the country, I am hearing the voice of their parents. This is how their parents spoke to them when they were little. This is how they learned to address others. They learned emotional abuse, so they dish it out.
For years now, we have been trying to stamp bullying out in our schools. Then, horribly, a bully, Donald Trump (aka Adolph Drumpf) has taken control of a major party — voted in by those creepy people who are bully hangers on — who think bullying is funny. It’s the revenge of the bullies.
Putin likes him. Putin obviously came from a bullying atmosphere, himself.
How many bullies are there out there?
There was a famous book that said — and I wish I remembered the title — that capitalism is a system that rewards sociopaths. People with scruples can’t make it to the top as well as people who are heartless, selfish, driven.
This election, more than any previous election, tests the dichotomy between the bullying sociopaths and those who seek to foster a freer, gentler environment.
For me that is the heart of the difference between Republicans and Democrats, not politics, but style.
I don’t think she is a crook. I think she made some mistakes. These people don’t seem to understand the difference between making mistakes and committing a crime.
It’s painful debating these people, because they are invariably insulting and bullying. They are not able to have a civil conversation.
They also seem to believe that being smart means that you never make mistakes.
I had a flash of insight about these people. They must, like me, have grown up in families where making a mistake was regarded as intolerable; but, unlike me, they haven’t spent 11 years in 12 step programs trying to unlearn that false premise.
Being smart doesn’t mean that you don’t make mistakes. It means that you learn from them. It means that you learn complex material quickly, that your thinking is flexible.
If you grew up in an environment where mistakes were severely punished, it limits your ability to be creative and take risks. This limits your ability to achieve. It limits your intelligence.
When these people call me all manner of names, because I don’t agree with them, or tell me to leave the country, I am hearing the voice of their parents. This is how their parents spoke to them when they were little. This is how they learned to address others. They learned emotional abuse, so they dish it out.
For years now, we have been trying to stamp bullying out in our schools. Then, horribly, a bully, Donald Trump (aka Adolph Drumpf) has taken control of a major party — voted in by those creepy people who are bully hangers on — who think bullying is funny. It’s the revenge of the bullies.
Putin likes him. Putin obviously came from a bullying atmosphere, himself.
How many bullies are there out there?
There was a famous book that said — and I wish I remembered the title — that capitalism is a system that rewards sociopaths. People with scruples can’t make it to the top as well as people who are heartless, selfish, driven.
This election, more than any previous election, tests the dichotomy between the bullying sociopaths and those who seek to foster a freer, gentler environment.
For me that is the heart of the difference between Republicans and Democrats, not politics, but style.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Things falling apart
I’ve been struggling to keep dying OA meetings alive. First there was a phone meeting that I kept alive for many years, tho a young man finally took it over for me. Then there is a small meeting that I go to near my home every week. Sometimes there are only two or three. Sometimes I’m the only one. We’re lucky when we get five people.
The Methodist Church where we have this meeting also is struggling. The paint is peeling. It seems like the number of people attending the service is not that much more than attend the OA meeting.
This weekend I went to an SLAA meeting in the city, which used to be very large, but there were only 3 of us there and no chair, so I had to go get the key to get into the room, even tho I arrived late.
That church, which is Catholic, seems to be struggling as well. The toilet near our meeting room doesn’t stop flushing, for instance, even though I’ve reported it.
Why are things falling apart?
Some of it is changed religious beliefs. How many people really identify theologically with Methodists any more? I don’t know.
With the Catholic Church, of course, we know there have been losses of money due to sexual abuse scandals.
Another thing is the Internet. Everyone is glued to their electronic devices and doesn’t have time to go to in person events. Also, on the Internet, they can find more exciting content: songs sung better, preachers who are more eloquent.
Another thing is the loss of the great volunteer force, which was stay at home moms. This force of able workers devoted themselves to many of our national institutions — especially churches. They aren’t available any more.
As women’s “liberation” encouraged women to believe that working outside the home was liberating, the economy adjusted to the idea that families had two incomes. Housing prices doubled, so that one person working could no longer afford a home. It was like during the California gold rush, where prices went up so high that gold miners could get no profits off the gold that they found.
Now, working outside the home is no longer an option. It’s mandatory for the financial security of the family. People no longer have the time and energy to do do those older things, like keep churches going. Everyone’s working multiple jobs, just trying to stay afloat.
So now I’m thinking about Trump who speaks to people who think the country is falling apart and Obama who is saying that things are pretty good. I guess in some sense both can be seen as true.
Still, what do I want to devote my energies to saving?
The Methodist Church where we have this meeting also is struggling. The paint is peeling. It seems like the number of people attending the service is not that much more than attend the OA meeting.
This weekend I went to an SLAA meeting in the city, which used to be very large, but there were only 3 of us there and no chair, so I had to go get the key to get into the room, even tho I arrived late.
That church, which is Catholic, seems to be struggling as well. The toilet near our meeting room doesn’t stop flushing, for instance, even though I’ve reported it.
Why are things falling apart?
Some of it is changed religious beliefs. How many people really identify theologically with Methodists any more? I don’t know.
With the Catholic Church, of course, we know there have been losses of money due to sexual abuse scandals.
Another thing is the Internet. Everyone is glued to their electronic devices and doesn’t have time to go to in person events. Also, on the Internet, they can find more exciting content: songs sung better, preachers who are more eloquent.
Another thing is the loss of the great volunteer force, which was stay at home moms. This force of able workers devoted themselves to many of our national institutions — especially churches. They aren’t available any more.
As women’s “liberation” encouraged women to believe that working outside the home was liberating, the economy adjusted to the idea that families had two incomes. Housing prices doubled, so that one person working could no longer afford a home. It was like during the California gold rush, where prices went up so high that gold miners could get no profits off the gold that they found.
Now, working outside the home is no longer an option. It’s mandatory for the financial security of the family. People no longer have the time and energy to do do those older things, like keep churches going. Everyone’s working multiple jobs, just trying to stay afloat.
So now I’m thinking about Trump who speaks to people who think the country is falling apart and Obama who is saying that things are pretty good. I guess in some sense both can be seen as true.
Still, what do I want to devote my energies to saving?
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Just launching myself blythely into this controversy & expecting to be strafed.
Oh, so many thoughts.
I am seeing so much divisive finger pointing on the Internet where people of differing opinions accuse each other of nefarious conspiracies. If you are a liberal, those conspiracies are headed up by the Koch brothers. If you are a conservative those conspiracies are headed up by George Soros. Also, everyone is suddenly Hitler or a Nazi, if you don’t agree with them.
Unproven malicious gossip is taken as true. Mainstream media is drowned out, because people can’t afford subscriptions — or the time to read a paid subscription.
And, into this maelstrom, comes the current crisis surrounding the killing of Afrimericans by white cops and the shooting of cops by a loony in Dallas.
I tend to think of myself as progressive. I tend to take those views in many respects.
There’s this liberal cartoon
Then there's this conservative cartoon
I do find a certain appeal to the conservative cartoon. An Afrimerican "friend" on FB accused me of sounding like a Nazi when I said there were some cultural issues about the difference between how Afrimericans respond to police and how Anglos do. I don't think that this is a legal issue exactly, unlike the author of the above cartoon.
Now these latest two shooting by cops did not show Afrimericans responding non-deferentially to cops. But some of the earlier ones did.
Please note I'm not saying that the anger management issues that cops have manifested in response to non-deferential behavior were justified. I think cops should be trained not to respond to perceived rudeness with rage. I think cops should be more professional than that. On the other hand, it just really isn't prudent to be rude or talk back to a cop. It just isn't.
I do feel that Anglos like me (actually I'm only half Anglo) tend to be more timid and deferential in general. I've even heard Afrimericans comment on that.
Let me give you a couple of examples out of my life.
The first example occurred when my son was in second grade.
I live in a school district that is about half Hispanic and half white, but there are very few African Americans, as we usually think about that term, tho the Hispanics often have some African ancestry. I went to my son’s class and witnessed an African American boy put out in the hall. He had been talking back to the teacher and would not stop.
Now the curious thing about this was that this boy was not being nasty or disrespectful. He was just talking to her pleasantly, as if they were in an ordinary conversation, ignoring the rest of the class. I didn’t think he was a bad kid at all, but somehow his behavior was not like that of the other kids — all of whom listened silently when the teacher spoke.
I felt that this was perhaps a cultural difference. I notice, for instance, that Afrimericans are allowed to talk back in church, while Anglos are not supposed to.
The second example happened to me in NYC.
I was walking along 34th street at night with a man I had just met at an event. My companion was a very small, nerdy white man. As we walked along, we encountered a rather seedy looking street preacher, also white, who was saying something about Christianity. I’m not quite sure what he was saying, but the fellow I was walking with chose to try to speak to the preacher. I don’t remember what the comment was, but the street preacher went ballistic, showing himself to be dangerously unhinged.
The fellow I was walking with and I chose to try to walk briskly away from this lunatic, but he was screaming after us and seemed like he might try to follow us, which was a bit alarming.
Another pedestrian went over and yelled at the lunatic and told him to quit bothering us. This pedestrian was African American. His intervention did seem to work as the lunatic stopped yelling at us.
On the one hand, I was grateful to the person who intervened to help us and thanked him. On the other hand, I felt that this intervention might easily have backfired and resulted in a violent incident, and I doubted that an Anglo would have intervened in the same way.
In any case, I'm thinking that it might be good if school children were trained in how to respond to police, so that there would be consistency. That might avoid some problems. If everyone behaved consistently, the police might more easily distinguish people who were truly resisting arrest and dangerous from others.
I am seeing so much divisive finger pointing on the Internet where people of differing opinions accuse each other of nefarious conspiracies. If you are a liberal, those conspiracies are headed up by the Koch brothers. If you are a conservative those conspiracies are headed up by George Soros. Also, everyone is suddenly Hitler or a Nazi, if you don’t agree with them.
Unproven malicious gossip is taken as true. Mainstream media is drowned out, because people can’t afford subscriptions — or the time to read a paid subscription.
And, into this maelstrom, comes the current crisis surrounding the killing of Afrimericans by white cops and the shooting of cops by a loony in Dallas.
I tend to think of myself as progressive. I tend to take those views in many respects.
There’s this liberal cartoon
All Houses Matter: The Updated Version @krisstraub pic.twitter.com/PJ9gd5qGd3— Mikey Neumann (@mikeyface) July 7, 2016
Then there's this conservative cartoon
I do find a certain appeal to the conservative cartoon. An Afrimerican "friend" on FB accused me of sounding like a Nazi when I said there were some cultural issues about the difference between how Afrimericans respond to police and how Anglos do. I don't think that this is a legal issue exactly, unlike the author of the above cartoon.
Now these latest two shooting by cops did not show Afrimericans responding non-deferentially to cops. But some of the earlier ones did.
Please note I'm not saying that the anger management issues that cops have manifested in response to non-deferential behavior were justified. I think cops should be trained not to respond to perceived rudeness with rage. I think cops should be more professional than that. On the other hand, it just really isn't prudent to be rude or talk back to a cop. It just isn't.
I do feel that Anglos like me (actually I'm only half Anglo) tend to be more timid and deferential in general. I've even heard Afrimericans comment on that.
Let me give you a couple of examples out of my life.
The first example occurred when my son was in second grade.
I live in a school district that is about half Hispanic and half white, but there are very few African Americans, as we usually think about that term, tho the Hispanics often have some African ancestry. I went to my son’s class and witnessed an African American boy put out in the hall. He had been talking back to the teacher and would not stop.
Now the curious thing about this was that this boy was not being nasty or disrespectful. He was just talking to her pleasantly, as if they were in an ordinary conversation, ignoring the rest of the class. I didn’t think he was a bad kid at all, but somehow his behavior was not like that of the other kids — all of whom listened silently when the teacher spoke.
I felt that this was perhaps a cultural difference. I notice, for instance, that Afrimericans are allowed to talk back in church, while Anglos are not supposed to.
The second example happened to me in NYC.
I was walking along 34th street at night with a man I had just met at an event. My companion was a very small, nerdy white man. As we walked along, we encountered a rather seedy looking street preacher, also white, who was saying something about Christianity. I’m not quite sure what he was saying, but the fellow I was walking with chose to try to speak to the preacher. I don’t remember what the comment was, but the street preacher went ballistic, showing himself to be dangerously unhinged.
The fellow I was walking with and I chose to try to walk briskly away from this lunatic, but he was screaming after us and seemed like he might try to follow us, which was a bit alarming.
Another pedestrian went over and yelled at the lunatic and told him to quit bothering us. This pedestrian was African American. His intervention did seem to work as the lunatic stopped yelling at us.
On the one hand, I was grateful to the person who intervened to help us and thanked him. On the other hand, I felt that this intervention might easily have backfired and resulted in a violent incident, and I doubted that an Anglo would have intervened in the same way.
In any case, I'm thinking that it might be good if school children were trained in how to respond to police, so that there would be consistency. That might avoid some problems. If everyone behaved consistently, the police might more easily distinguish people who were truly resisting arrest and dangerous from others.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Clinton Fantasies
I’m having this fantasy that I’m Hillary Clinton and that I’m answering questions.
I’m having this fantasy because I’m expecting to vote for her and I’m hoping she’s really not the monster that some people are painting her to be. I did support Bernie Sanders, but it appears that he’s not going to be the nominee and I do feel that she’s likely better than Trump.
I never really liked to think of myself as a socialist. I supported Sanders, because he had some other positions that I liked: for instance, being against overthrowing dictators, because we don’t really have anything to put in their place; saying that addiction is a disease and not a crime; and also the Medicare for all thing (which I guess is socialist).
Anyway, I’m thinking right now that I’ll vote for Clinton, so I’m hoping there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for what she’s been doing with respect to the e-mails and the apparently unqualified member of a committee on nuclear policy.
So here are my fantasy responses, delivered not in her characteristically tight-lipped, defensive, bellicose way, but rather in a more relaxed, thoughtful, candid way.
E-mails
—————
Well, at the time it seemed like a good idea. It seemed like a more secure, private system than, say, gmail or Yahoo! In retrospect, I see that those big companies were probably better protected against hackers than my private system, but back then I did not realize that.
I did think we had permission. Joe, the Secret Service guy who went over the thing, said he got everything checked out. I guess maybe he didn’t clear it with the State Department. I didn’t double check.
Managers are supposed to be big picture people. We have to delegate details to others, or we wouldn’t get anything done.
Nuclear committee
————————————
As we go through life, we meet many people in many different ways. Yes, I met Mr. Fernando because he was a donor; but that’s not why I put him on this board. I put him on the board, because I got to know him, because I found him to be a person of exceptional thoughtfulness and good character. I think that, if you met him, you would also like him.
I find very sad that this extraordinarily sensitive, generous man is being subjected to the horrible implications that the media is putting forward.
***********
This is kind of like my books, where I write fantasies as novels.
I’m having this fantasy because I’m expecting to vote for her and I’m hoping she’s really not the monster that some people are painting her to be. I did support Bernie Sanders, but it appears that he’s not going to be the nominee and I do feel that she’s likely better than Trump.
I never really liked to think of myself as a socialist. I supported Sanders, because he had some other positions that I liked: for instance, being against overthrowing dictators, because we don’t really have anything to put in their place; saying that addiction is a disease and not a crime; and also the Medicare for all thing (which I guess is socialist).
Anyway, I’m thinking right now that I’ll vote for Clinton, so I’m hoping there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for what she’s been doing with respect to the e-mails and the apparently unqualified member of a committee on nuclear policy.
So here are my fantasy responses, delivered not in her characteristically tight-lipped, defensive, bellicose way, but rather in a more relaxed, thoughtful, candid way.
E-mails
—————
Well, at the time it seemed like a good idea. It seemed like a more secure, private system than, say, gmail or Yahoo! In retrospect, I see that those big companies were probably better protected against hackers than my private system, but back then I did not realize that.
I did think we had permission. Joe, the Secret Service guy who went over the thing, said he got everything checked out. I guess maybe he didn’t clear it with the State Department. I didn’t double check.
Managers are supposed to be big picture people. We have to delegate details to others, or we wouldn’t get anything done.
Nuclear committee
————————————
As we go through life, we meet many people in many different ways. Yes, I met Mr. Fernando because he was a donor; but that’s not why I put him on this board. I put him on the board, because I got to know him, because I found him to be a person of exceptional thoughtfulness and good character. I think that, if you met him, you would also like him.
I find very sad that this extraordinarily sensitive, generous man is being subjected to the horrible implications that the media is putting forward.
***********
This is kind of like my books, where I write fantasies as novels.
Monday, May 23, 2016
Another teen suicide due to bullying
A teen suicide connected with bullying.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/23/after-years-of-alleged-bullying-an-ohio-teen-killed-herself-is-her-school-district-responsible/
In this case, we have someone insecure about her race, because adopted by white parents, then bullied about her race and perceived sexual orientation.
People can be bullied for all sorts of things. In my case, I think I was bullied because I was an Aspie. My Aspie kids were bullied, too. Now that’s not to say that they didn’t contribute, because they were socially inept, because they were Aspies. But, again, that was part of their disability.
Neurotypical people think that an Aspie could just stop being socially inept. No. They can’t — any more than a person in a wheelchair can stand up and walk.
Tony Atwood recommends that Aspie children be appointed a mentor, preferably an older child, who can accompany them at recess and lunch and guide them through social situations. I asked for that for my kids, but it didn’t happen.
We really need to look at this public perception that school is good for kids socially. Really? It seems to me that it’s a place where they’re more likely to be socially traumatized.
Did the school have notice in the case of this suicide? How could they not have had notice if there was a shouting incident over the bullying? Moreover, if they don’t notice the bullying, they must not have enough supervision. Bullying happens very often. It should be expected and checked for. Schools should not be waiting for reports.
Maybe kids need one of those pendants, like they give older people, so that they can press a button and call for help when they’re being bullied. Perhaps kids should be given surveys monthly to ask if they’ve been bullied and get them help.
Maybe every adult should have a survey asking them whether on the whole they thought school was socially beneficial or traumatizing. Most adults I know remember traumatic experiences and feelings of being socially stigmatized at school.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/23/after-years-of-alleged-bullying-an-ohio-teen-killed-herself-is-her-school-district-responsible/
In this case, we have someone insecure about her race, because adopted by white parents, then bullied about her race and perceived sexual orientation.
People can be bullied for all sorts of things. In my case, I think I was bullied because I was an Aspie. My Aspie kids were bullied, too. Now that’s not to say that they didn’t contribute, because they were socially inept, because they were Aspies. But, again, that was part of their disability.
Neurotypical people think that an Aspie could just stop being socially inept. No. They can’t — any more than a person in a wheelchair can stand up and walk.
Tony Atwood recommends that Aspie children be appointed a mentor, preferably an older child, who can accompany them at recess and lunch and guide them through social situations. I asked for that for my kids, but it didn’t happen.
We really need to look at this public perception that school is good for kids socially. Really? It seems to me that it’s a place where they’re more likely to be socially traumatized.
Did the school have notice in the case of this suicide? How could they not have had notice if there was a shouting incident over the bullying? Moreover, if they don’t notice the bullying, they must not have enough supervision. Bullying happens very often. It should be expected and checked for. Schools should not be waiting for reports.
Maybe kids need one of those pendants, like they give older people, so that they can press a button and call for help when they’re being bullied. Perhaps kids should be given surveys monthly to ask if they’ve been bullied and get them help.
Maybe every adult should have a survey asking them whether on the whole they thought school was socially beneficial or traumatizing. Most adults I know remember traumatic experiences and feelings of being socially stigmatized at school.
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