Dime

All right that does it. I give in. I am mentally different than my fellows. LOL

I am literally splitting a side right now. I love everyone here and the viewpoints of all.

One thing that I have learned in recovery is as I learn through my experiences my ideas and opinions may change.

One of my mentors in sobriety always says "I have the right to change my opinion tomorrow". I know what the heck he is talking about.

kurtrambis

This thread as got me confused maybe that's a good thing.

stone

How do you turn your life and your will over to a doorknob though? How does a doorknob return you to sanity?
Are you entirely ready to have the doorknob remove all your defects of character?

Ago

To me, this sums up the whole thread

I was "the piece of sh1t the world revolved around" both infinitely superior to "you" and always secretly thinking everyone else was "better" then me, thinking everyone else was issued a book of coping skills or something no one bothered to give me.

I was raised "off the grid", and went to 17 schools, I was always from somewhere else, I was a total nerd as well, I was incredibly intelligent in school, with a near photographic memory, in seventh grade I did Algebra, Algebra II, Geometry, Geometry II, Trigonometry, and analytical Geometry, I had a math teacher that experimented on me, to see how far I could get in one year....I moved every year, so that was the furthest I ever got in math, schools wouldn't believe my transcripts so back to Alg I and Span I I would go, year after year....of course everybody beats up the nerds.....By the time I was in High School, I was Loaded by the time I walked into class every morning, and I'd get drunk at lunch. There was a kid in school, not nearly as smart as me, I ran away from home, he got a scholarship to Berkeley.

I saw him four years later, (I was 20) He had a PHD, I was a drunk busboy

I was ashamed of myself, my parents, my home, and my upbringing.

I wasn't "normal" and neither was my homelife.

I never felt "part of" until I started to get loaded, and then I began to kind of "fit in" with others, at least while I was getting loaded.

My "aha" moments were two-fold regarding terminal uniqueness.

One: I was actually pondering the term "terminal uniqueness" having just heard it, and I was actually thinking of all of the qualities that actually made me "unique", and I started looking around at each person in the room, thinking of all of the qualities that made them unique, as I did that, I started to think about their thought process, that each of them, were saying to themselves, "I am unique" as I was thinking that, I started thinking about everyone on the planet thinking to themselves "I am so unique", billions of people saying to themself, "I am unique and here's how"

I said to myself, "My GOD I am JUST like ALL of these people, all walking around telling themselves they are unique, there are billions of us"

At that moment, I realized I was just like everybody else, and thought to myself, "Wow, now THAT'S unique, realizing I am not unique!" and order was restored to the universe.

The second "hit" I got about "terminal uniqueness" is I had been sober for a couple of months, and I got the fact that is my ego that was the problem, but I didn't really get it, not really.

The rules didn't apply to me because I was raised off the grid. Because I was smarter then you. Because rules were for the masses. For the unenlightened. For the working class schmucks.

I had gone from being a geek, to being a "surfer dude", I was a Fireman/Paramedic/sculptor, that bartended at night. I had slept with many beautiful women due to the fact that I was smarter then "you", better looking then "you", funnier then "you", I was "ripped" with broad shoulders and a narrow waist and a six pack from surfing and manual labor, I was "unique". Please realize that all of this was unconscious, I didn't realize I was thinking this, it was happening on an unconscious level. it was just part of who I was 20 years ago.

Anyway, there I was, sitting at a meeting with my "vastness", my superiority, my inferiority, my "pimpness", everything good that had ever happened in my life was due to me and my special abilities, everything bad that had ever happened was due to a vengeful God, bad luck, and amazing strings of bizarre coincidences.

So the speaker that night was a guy we called "Toofless S****" because he was missing most of his teeth. He was a "low rent" white trash quasi street guy, that had nothing I wanted....he opened his mouth to "pitch".....

My story came out of his mouth.

All of the ego, the arrogance, the feelings of superiority, the boasting about his women conquests.....

WHAT THE F*CK?????????

It was ME!!!!!!

except as far as I could see, he had NO reason to be so arrogant!

I DID!!!

I WAS SMARTER THEN YOU!!!!!

THOSE WOMEN SLEPT WITH ME BECAUSE I WAS SPECIAL!!!!!

I wept.

it was me.

He WAS me.

but but but

He was UGLY!!!

He was STUPID!!!

He was ARROGANT!!!!

He was me.

I got it.

I started looking around, seeing the similarities.

We all have a "story", we are like the characters in "Bless The Beasts and The Children", The Bedwetters.

I wet the bed until I was seven years old.

We are afraid. Somehow, somewhere, we feel like no one understands us, that we don't "fit in", that everyone else got the "rule book" on life, but no one gave it to us.

As long as I was unique, I was alone.

We understand.

We love you.

Unique or not, keep coming back, you will hear your story, and then you will never have to do this alone, you will never have to be alone again.

If you have a problem with alcohol/drugs/addiction, you are in the right place.

Welcome.

My name is Andrew, and I am an Alcoholic.

mle-sober

Thanks Andrew. I'm glad you took the time and energy to write that.

gneiss

Wow Andrew. Thanks for sharing that. I had a boyfriend, briefly, who could have written that. He really was gorgeous, intelligent, charming. But your story and his departed when you decided to clean up. His narcissism knew no bounds and eventually I got tired of petting his ego and being on the losing end of his double standards. Last time my path crossed with that guy he was strung out on meth, and still believed he was the most amazingest boy ever. At the time I couldn't understand it at all, but that was before I started doing drugs. I think I understand him a little better now, having been through meth and alcohol addiction myself, and I just feel sorry for him. If he's not in prison he'll be dead within 5 years, and probably the only thing keeping him alive is his lack of money. Your story reminded me that there's still hope for him. Thanks.

I heard author Jack Cafferty on Larry King Live earlier. He mentioned his struggle to remain sober, even after 20 years on the wagon, upon the death of his wife. It was inspiring to hear him. I don't even know him and I felt proud for him.

windysan

They're always after me Lucky Charms !

jimhere

What Eckhart Tolle said about the ego is true. The ego will use anything it can to seperate me from you and me from any help I need.

For example, when I was new I had a little "if only" story going on. It went like this:

But you don't understand, if only I hadn't came from a broken home. If only my dad had been around more. If only we had more love in our home. If only we had more money, If only we hadn't moved so many times, If only we hadn't lived in that s**t hole of a town and I hadn't went to that high school, If only I had went to college, yada yada yada, maybe I wouldn't be an alcoholic and maybe I wouldn't have turned out the way I turned out.

One day I was sitting in an AA meeting listening to this guy talk about coming from a home where everything was in place, if that means that coming from a home where the family was intact and there was love and money and stability means not being alcoholic and not turning out the way you turn out. This guy was an attorney and wearing a suit that cost as much as I made in a month. At the time I was a logger. And this guy was just as much an alkie as I was and even more screwed up than me.

And that little lie got smashed.
Jim

firestorm090

I thought I was special, till I went to the bar one day and spent all the money I had. It was early in the month and I had blown my whole check in a few days, and still had three weeks to go till I received another. You see, I thought I was special because I normally have enough money to even by the bar rounds, yet that month I screwed up big time. I humbly asked if I could run a tab, which was no problem, but it made me see that I was just another drunk, my bubble had burst and I was the same as all the old guys sitting there waiting to have another drink. In hindsight, it was a blessing, cause I found this group. It's nice to belong somewhere instead of the local bar.

michelle01

*I like to hear fair, balanced, thoughts and ideas.*

I looked up this concept a bit further and thought this was a good introductory article which explains it well.

AA and Terminal Uniqueness - Making 12 Steps Work

least

Sailorjohn, I apologize for 'going off' on you for the way I interpreted your response. The fault is on me, not you, and I'm sorry I reacted so badly.

Tazman53

Good thread overall, it did go theough the normal cycle many of them go through...

1.Good comments.
2. Bash AA.
3. AA person pointing out that it was not about AA
4. Others saying it is.
5. Folks getting thier nickers in a knot.
6. Good comments.
7. Apologies.

What ever works is how I have always felt, some people feel the need to claim they are the only people who have ever recovered the way they have, that is fine, I could care less, at least they found a way of recivering and that is what matters.

RufusACanal

Here is me going to sleep listening to Eckhart Tolle; " The Ego is like a Flower..."

LosingmyMisery

I will not post in the secular forum, I will not post in the secular forum. What was I thinking? Well h*ll, I tried.

RufusACanal

I understand Kurt. I have been alone because I chose to be alone and I used the excuse of my aloneness to drink. I would suggest an honest appraisal of self and action to change. Best to you Kurt.

CAPTAINZING2000

a place where vehicles, passengers, or goods begin or end a journey

Casting ego aside, I'm but one of many
One drop of water in the sea.

But, it takes every drop to fill the oceans

I can live with that concept today

Getting back to the terminal

The Station

by Robert J. Hastings


Tucked away in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long, long trip that almost spans the continent. We're traveling by passenger train, and out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hills, of biting winter and blazing summer and cavorting spring and docile fall.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. There will be bands playing, and flags waving. And once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true. So many wishes will be fulfilled and so many pieces of our lives finally will be neatly fitted together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering ... waiting, waiting, waiting, for the station.

However, sooner or later we must realize there is no one station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.

"When we reach the station, that will be it !" we cry. Translated it means, "When I'm 18, that will be it ! When I buy a new 450 SL Mercedes Benz, that will be it ! When I put the last kid through college, that will be it ! When I have paid off the mortgage, that will be it ! When I win a promotion, that will be it ! When I reach the age of retirement, that will be it ! I shall live happily ever after !"

Unfortunately, once we get it, then it disappears. The station somehow hides itself at the end of an endless track.

"Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118 "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. Rather, it is regret over yesterday or fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.

So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot oftener, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.

Robert J. Hastings

I read this early in my recovery. Read it and reread it until, you can grasp this concept in your mind.

I'm relishing, the time, I spend today with family and friends.

I try to hold onto every sunrise and every sunset, every spring and the flowers blooming. The joyous days of summer that, take me back in time to my youth, the glorious colors of Fall and the sadness each winter in another years passing.

CrackQuack

Yeah, after reading that, I got to thinking.... "WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKIN?" Writing that. It can be taken in so many ways.. OMG! hahahaha

sailorjohn

No, probably still not what you're thinking, had more to do with that one particular word, think of apple polishing. Mean thoughts, away with ye!

CrackQuack

My thoughts go more towards something sexual, but then I am a red head and have a stereotype to foster.. LOLOLOL. YES! I wrote it! I did it.. Red on the head means fire in the bed. hahahahaha... OK, the subway cookie must have finally kicked in. I've lost it.. Help me find it?? At least I refuse to fit the red heads have bad tempers stereotype.. My temper, in my teens, yeah.. It was pretty bad. I'd beat up chicks for calling me a Bi*c*. Now, i polish doorknobs.. BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! :rotfxko

sailorjohn

Least, I am so sorry that you thought this was a personal attack, it truly was not intended to be that.

I was recalling the occasion of the start of my 5 year road trip. My exwife and I were bareboat chartering in the British Virgin Islands, it was our first night out on the boat, we took a short sail across the Drake Channel, anchored, and took the dinghy in for dinner at a beach front restaurant.

Wasn't drinking at the time, had been clean and dry-for lack of a better word-for over 14 years at this point. I was not a happy person. In AA I would be aptly described as a 'dry drunk'. But since I hadn't been to a meeting in over 10 years at this point, didn't have an occasion to hear myself described this way.

So here is my wife sitting across the table from me, having her little cocktail, she would get tipsy from one drink, and rarely ever drank in front of me.

Not sure if it was before the drink came or after she started drinking it, she told me, in what I recall as being a rather smug tone, "Now, you can't have a drink".

Not sure what went through my head at the time, it was probably something like "The f**k I can't". "Maybe I should be drinking with that woman sitting at the bar that's been giving me the eye the whole time we've been here?". On the last day, maybe 5 or 6 days later, went back to the general store that was maybe 100 yards from the airport terminal on Beef Island, walked in the door back to the glass cooler and picked up a bottle of Red Stripe that was placed just at eye level, I knew they were there as we had anchored at this place earlier in the week.

And that was the start of my last road trip, took me just under 5 years to get back, caused a lot of pain along the way.