When I was drinking I would hurt people, because that’s what I did when I was drinking, and then I would feel bad and avoid them. Sometimes go out of my way not to see them. And then when the day came around that I did, I would hang my head in shame and hope that they had forgotten.

My guilt would pile up like garbage. The trash can would be overflowing, shit falling on the floor, and I’d just ignore it. But then I’d walk by the guilty trash pile and step on something and it’d stick to my shoe and I’d be like...

"Dude just get off"

And that’s how I lived.

We talk in 12 step meetings about how the steps change us, make us better people. How they awaken our spirits. And with that I was thinking about Steps 8 and 9 recently and the cool thing about working them is that years later when I have something to do, amends to be made, or whatever I know that there is freedom after I walk through it. After I sweep up and take out my trash I’ll feel better. “Freedom from bondage of self” as it’s written.

The first time I was making my list, preparing to make those amends and so on, I had all kinds of anxiety and fear because I’d never done something like that before. Not something that monumental anyways. I didn’t have much experience with facing not only what I had done but also facing the other person. I didn’t know what was going to happen or how it was all gonna work out. So many unknowns. And unknowns are scary. Plus, I felt bad for what I’d done that led me to the person’s door in the first place.

People in the meetings said it was going to be okay and I knew that it was going to be okay just from earlier step work. But right then it wasn’t okay. Because I hadn’t made them. I was still living with the burden of my trash heap.

So in the here and now, because I went through the whole amends process, became willing, and knocked on people’s doors, I know there’s good stuff on the other side. I can rely on my past experience of taking action. I have that benefit now. The steps not only clear away the “wreckage of the past” but also give us the skills to live a clean life moving forward. Steps 8 and 9 are “training for Step 10” as John recently said.

Walking around with something on my mind, something that I need to do it really bothers me in the here and now. After having a clear conscience and knowing what a blue sky feels like, whenever my conscience isn’t clear it grinds on my emotional gears. It’s like life comes to a halt. It interferes with my relationship with god, with the cosmos, with you guys.

Today, I don’t have to walk around a trash pile. I know what to do. I can reach out to whoever now and be done with it. I won’t have to wonder if someone’s still mad or hurt because I can take responsibility for what I did. I can simply say “I was being an ass. And I’m sorry.“ It can really be that simple.

Then all that burden, all that discord, it goes away. Doing that kinda thing is how come I’m happy today. It’s how I get to live my life fully in the present. Not looking back, not feeling bad, but enjoying everything this very moment has to offer. There’ll be no fucking trash on the floor.

Also, just knowing that a relationship can be repaired or set back on track is a wonderful feeling. Just knowing that it will no longer be an obstacle, that I don’t have to avoid someone or not look them in the eye. Just knowing it’s gonna be okay gives me hope, gives me relief, gives me the motivation to clean it up.

And it will also make the other person’s day just that much better. They can have and share in that same freedom, in that same closure. They deserve it more than I do.

I’ll never forget the look on his face after I said, “I was wrong. I’m sorry.” His eyes teared up the same as mine as we shared that moment, as we both let go of a shard of glass that was holding us back. That was keeping us from having the best relationship possible. We shared in that release. I’ll doubt if you’ll find something better than that.

#alcoholism #twelvesteps #relationships #diariespodcast

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Here we have a 1930s steam locomotive with drums, an upright bass, a couple of pianos, and a string section. The original video was over 18 minutes long so I chopped and rearranged to fit the music I put together. I guess this is the kinda thing I do in a pandemic.

I had originally planned for the music to go with some winter driving footage but that didn’t pan out. When I came across New York Central Railroad clip I knew that was it. I’ve always had a love for trains, might have something to do with my dad being an engineer when I was growing up.

The original black and white train footage came from The Mighty Hudson Steam Locomotive.

🚂 🎹 🎻

#HeavyMachina #diariespodcast #diariesvideo

Hot damn! I really like when this one gets going! 🔥❤️

Thanks man! I think this was the first time I’ve tried to make an actual song 😊

Very nice indeed. 😎🎶

I watched it last night. Nice.

Thanks guys!

Im not a train enthusiast. But I’ll take it, who knew a train can jam out

Thanks! I’ve been wanting to do a train set to a piano hurricane for I don’t know how long.

Cool video, not a big fan of the music though. It sounds kind of.. droning

For sure, purposely repetitive!

This was an old movie everyone

Yep, I called that out in the description 👍

Thx

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There’s this saying, “better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”

Sources have various versions, from Mark Twain to Abe Lincoln to that pesky critter King James.

Anyways, who said it first and how they said it is irrelevant. It’s good. Me not chiming in with my ignorance makes the world a better place. There’s too much noise and bullshit out there already.

So this is easy for me to remember because I come out looking like a winner when I stay silent. Instead of talking and looking like a boob.

However, there are two more related truths that are a smidge trickier for me.

See, along the same line as King Twain Lincoln it’s just as good for me to not feed the trolls. Keep quiet when someone else is raging in my direction. Not throw counter punches in fights I cannot win.[1] It’s better for everybody involved if I just let the troll run out of gas or just move along.

Ya, sometimes I follow them down the rabbit hole because my emotions take over and I think they’re full of shit. I'll try to force them to see how they’re wrong and then get them to apologize. Or I’ll try to force them to listen to reason so they won’t be upset or whatever.

None of that’s ever gonna happen.

But what will happen when I don’t retaliate is that said trolls can sit in their own shit. Take their medal home and wear it with pride. Revel in the prestige of being an asshole. They’ll most likely know it, too. Unless they're a real boob. Just don't count on the troll backing down. Because chances are good they won't.

Anyways, when I’m up in arms the last thing I wanna do is listen to somebody else tell me that I’m doing it wrong. If I’m doing it “right” I’ll let other people be wrong as well. Including the trolls. I don’t need to engage in every atrocity.

And then there’s the times when I’m the troll. I open my mouth when I shouldn’t. That's not good.

I’m never mean-spirited on purpose but people who don’t know me don’t know that. I need to exercise caution more often than not. I won’t go wrong with err’ing on the side of hesitation.

Really, at the end of the day me not putting my gear in mouth is the generally right thing to do.

When in doubt consult a spiritual advisor.

PS– I’m not preaching to you. I’m preaching to me. Because I’m really not that cool.

PS2– When recording the audio I transposed gear and mouth. So I changed it every where.

PS3- Ya, I said tomorrow's date in the audio. Because today really should be Thursday.

PS4- And also in the audio version beloved listeners can hear me snap my fingers at the cats. Because I'm good like that.

#advancedsoul #protip #diariespodcast

Like all things the only black and white rules are the ones that are gray. ↑

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About an hour ago I put the wrong key in my back door. Like a moron. And then gave the knob a confident twist/push. And of course it wouldn’t turn. Or budge. It never does. With the wrong key.

In that fatal moment I all but wanted to call a locksmith. To take over from there. Kinda like when I started digging an escape tunnel through the foundation in my basement. Sometimes you need to call the pros in when you hit a water pipe.

Really, I just wanted to go inside after I got home from work. I got enough problems without needing to channel Houdini to make it past the deadbolt.

The thought of Trader Joe’s Halloween cookies on the other side are the only thing that kept me going. I’ve had four so far and even though the vanilla creme is orange, they’ve changed everything for me.

But wait, to make matters worse: while I was standing in my back door shame I remembered the two kids riding their bikes in the alley when I pulled up. I’m sure they were both staring at me. Staring those incoherent, pitying stares that kids have when they see an adult “doing it wrong.” I didn’t bother to look at them. I’m sure they were throwing dumbfounded scorn every which way.

The neighbors are surely all talking by now, too. I won’t be able to show my face in the cul-de-sac or even leave the house for the next several hours. Probably until daybreak. I guess I’ll order China Wok delivery for dinner and just assume I won’t be invited to the Christmas cookie parties this year.

Other options for delivery dinner that won’t break my bank? I’m not Thurston Howell the III over here and am also not sure binging on Vegetable Lo Mein is such a good idea at this point in my career.

And then there’s the neighbor’s little dog. He loves to bark through the fence whenever he sees me. Oh does that little dog love to bark. And laugh. He seriously cackles and busts a rib every time I fumble those keys at the backdoor.

But eager, avid, endearing readers let it be known that on Saturday I foiled that little Napoleon’s plans forever more. I put plastic shutters along the fence in his favorite barking spot. They’re kinda dingy, pink shutters1 I trash picked from somebody in the alley but that’s irrelevant. Henceforth his barking will be a one-way ticket to nowhere.

Also, I have two Halloween cookies2 left if anyone’s interested. Contact me so I can review your credentials first. Yes, I screen everybody I share my cookies with.

#thestruggleisreal #cookies #diariespodcast

You’re sounding a lot more comfortable on the audio :)

Thanks! I just had to find my groove. And get my workstation all in place. I don’t think I ever posted photos of the new workbench I set up but I’ll do that later tonight.

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A few piano melodies while a house burns in black and white 🎹🔥🏠

Reminds me of the lower end of the Peanuts theme in certain parts.

#diariespodcast #diariesvideo

Hey is it okay if I use this video on my channel? It’s gonna be the same thing but a different shade

Sure!

thanks

A little symbolic now that we’ve said goodbye to 2020.

Are you playing the keys?

Yep 🎹

If you watch in the middle section the house will dance a little bit to the piano, too 😉

I noticed! Nice 👍

Ain’t nothing but a house party

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This post originally appeared on the Facebook group, What's happening in Geneva, IL. I'm reposting here just in case someone decides the writing isn't as exceptional as the Campana flame wars. I mean discussions.

Guys, they’re doing fire hydrant flushing on the east side of Geneva today and from what I gather the happening is primarily in neighborhoods around the Fox River.

This is important because I’ve never actually seen a hydrant being flushed. I’ve always felt they were akin to the elusive Sasquatch and Yeti up north. Signs for this city event, sure, we’ve all seen them. But a horizontal fountain spray? Never in all my time spent living in this wonderful city.

Wait! This story doesn’t end there. Low and behold I did see water gushing from a hydrant on my way to work, in all of its bubbly, watery glory. I almost wanted to stop and splash around but this particular hydrant was in somebody’s yard on Division Street. I’d rather splish, splash, parade around on concrete cement like they get to do in the inner cities. Now that looks like fun. And I don’t like mud on my feet.

It’s a little chilly this morning, too. 57°F according to my weather app. If I hadn’t been almost late for work I’d have at least stopped to hang out with the city worker and his wrenches. I doubt if he’d let me actually hold any of his tools so I’d just get a stick, poke the mud, and chime in with “Yep, good pressure. That looks about right. Valve turn okay?”

I’d have taken a photo or two to share with you guys, but “hands free driving” guys. It’s the law.

In conclusion the guy doing the flushing didn’t look nearly as enthused as I felt while driving by. This is probably just day-in and day-out stuff for him. Another thing on his work to do list. I been there.

I, however, was simply delighted with what I saw. Another thing off my bucket list.

#photos #facebook #publicworks #diariespodcast

I snapped a picture of the Division hydrant on the way home from work. It’s not the best since I applied le zoom but I was quite pleased they gave her a fresh coat of red paint after the flush!

If that story doesn’t make people’s days better, I don’t know what would.

Although, I wouldn’t really want to splash in that water. There’s a reason they flush it out. Stagnant water in the lines is a breeding ground for all kinds for gross stuff. (This is the downside to being a water treatment engineer.)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. These writings have improved my day (noc) on a day (noc) that needed improvement.

keamoose- I yep, after your comments on the retention pond I tend to shy away from public water in this fashion. 😊

jimi- you are most welcome!

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After I’d been sober for a number of years I relapsed. It wasn’t something that I thought was gonna happen. And also, it didn’t “just happen” either.

So with that being said I feel qualified, I feel confident, I feel like I’m able to talk about relapse overall. I have experience with it.

I didn’t have any deep, dark, dank secrets. I didn’t hold anything back when writing my Fourth Step and I didn’t hold anything back when sharing my Fifth Step. I made all of the amends on my Eighth Step list. I was more spiritual than I’d ever been my whole life.

So why did I relapse?

Because I quit going to meetings. I quit hanging out with people in recovery and hung out instead with “normal” people. that drank like normal people do. We had a lot in common those “normal” ones, similar interests and so on. We could bond over things I couldn’t with people in the meetings.

And really we alcoholics aren’t that much different from them. I’ve known plenty of “normal” people who had resentments, who’d been plagued with fear their whole life, who felt lost and couldn’t find their way.

Anyways with my relapse, somehow I had convinced myself that I was okay, that me drinking was okay. Plain and simple: I’d lost touch with where I’d came from.

And I write this because I hear people talk who say that the reason alcoholics relapse is because they have reservations. And I think it’s bullshit to say that everyone who’s relapsed didn’t work the steps to their full ability.[1] I’ve heard that in meetings.

And further I’ve known people who have relapsed or were in the midst of a relapse who were and still are more spiritual, more kind, more compassionate and caring then those 20+ year sober guys who think they know it all. And obviously something is lacking in their program if they’re up there pounding their fists at the soapbox about a relapse they never had.

Yes, some people do relapse because there’s a secret that they don’t want to tell or they never found the humility or willingness to make a certain amend or whatever. But that’s not fucking everybody.

Okay, obviously I have some emotion behind this but just to be clear, just because you’ve never relapsed that doesn’t mean that you can come along and tell me that I didn’t do something right the first time. Or that you can make some broad assumption, or borderline accusation against everyone who has relapsed.

Be careful with airs of intolerance or ones of arrogance. They’ll get you in trouble. Further, you’re the authority on your recovery, not mine. And further still, my relapse doesn’t discount my previous recovery. It doesn’t wipe the sobriety slate clean or take away the decade plus I was sober. It only makes my recovery now that much better.

And lastly while I’m picking bones… Who cares if I would have been sober for over 25 years if I hadn’t relapsed. I’m not keeping score. Why are you?

#alcoholism #twelvesteps #diariespodcast #diariesvideo

Okay, I concede to the fact that I fell down on Step 12 before I relapsed. Step 10 and 11, too. But not working steps 1-9 to the best of my ability didn’t have anything to do with my relapse. ↑

Because he has enlightenment as his aim, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva is so called.

I still have Walter Becker on my mind but I was very struck by your comments, as usual. “Bodhisattva” is of course a rockin’ lil’ number by Steely Dan.

In other news, I feel like I’ve said these things before. I’m not thinking plagiarism, just that you are so completely in tune with things I’ve thought for a long time.

I don’t expect I’ll ever really understand this, but the way you write about it always just sounds so honest that it makes it more ok for me to talk about the stuff I have issues with.

Somewhere in one of my recovery books it says something along the lines of, “when sharing our pain if it helps just one person with their pain then it was worth it.”

I’m happy that my sharing is helping with your sharing 😊

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It's winter in a pandemic. It's Christmas time. I'm on vacation. I sit and write and record music. After listening to The Beatles sing about Eleanor Rigby on a two hour loop, I got hooked on violins stabbing and stomping about. The music sounds best with headphones.

Nothing happens in the video. I needed something visual because most of the social medias don't do just audio. The footage is public domain and fairly boring.

🎶🎻 #diariespodcast #diariesvideo

Oh yeaah… this is good stuff. Definitely digging it alongside the visuals. 🤘🏻🎅🏻🤘🏻

Thanks man! I like rocking out the strings more than the guitars these days 😎

Very dramatic - very Game of Thrones”esque”

I should listen to the GoT theme back to back with the above, to be sure I didn’t accidentally reproduce the tv show theme.

Good idea

I listened to the show’s theme and I’m pleased that mine is a similar style but different melodies, etc. I got nervous for a minute.

Certainly fitting

as you do

I did not search this but I like it

I’m glad that you do!

Wow

music

This is damned impressive.

Thank you so much!

It’s definitely a thing that exists,,.

How do you mean?

If this played in the background as I am dying, I wouldn’t mind.

That’s the best comment I’ve ever read ❤️

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#protip #relationships #diariespodcast

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And then there was that one time when it was 8 or 8:15 in the morning. I had called in sick the last couple of days because I’d been drinking. Too much. I called in[1] that morning, too, because there wasn't any way I was going to be able to pull myself out of it. Not that day for sure.

And Hell was especially hot that morning because I had not a drop to drink. Whatever I’d been drinking those past few “sick” days was gone and that wouldn’t do.

My ex-wife was going to take Maggie to school and then stop at the grocery store or something. I watched from the window as they drove down the street and around the corner. And around the next corner. The moment The Cube went beyond the trees I ran to my truck and drove to the liquor store like it was closing in five minutes. Even though the business day had barely started.

I was scared shitless while driving but really my heart was racing for a different reason. Soon the horrible morning alcoholic pains would quiet down. Soon I would feel that sweet release as Hell was put on hold. For another day.

At the liquor store I bought two half gallons of whiskey. I didn’t care what I looked like, what I smelled like, or what the cashier thought. Any public shame in that store no longer applied.

Then I raced back home as fast as I could, barely obeying traffic laws, and ignoring the other drivers. I didn’t want to see anybody I knew. Back at home I got nuzzled in the basement like I’d never left and put on Elizabeth from 1998 for background noise.[2] Then sweet bliss as I squeezed the cheap plastic whiskey bottle over and over again. Like there was no tomorrow. Any consequences for being drunk that day (or the days before) were no longer my concern. Tomorrow was tomorrow. Morning drinks mute the fires of hell.

...

This is what it means to be powerless over alcohol. This is what it means for my life to be unmanageable.

And to make my horrible story even worse I have a whole bunch of stories just like this. I played the odds each and every time I needed a drink and didn’t have one handy. I played the odds even when I did.

A guy said in a meeting that he knew exactly when he crossed over to being an alcoholic: when he started lying to his wife about his drinking. When I started hiding my drinking, started the sneaking around…that’s when all was truly lost. If you're there -- there's a way out when you're ready.

As I write and review and write this morning at 7:56 am, I’m filled with gratitude that the only morning drink I need in the here and now is a gallon of coffee. I still don’t do moderation well but I’m no longer magnetized to the basement futon and filled with emotional sludge.

And just so I don't end on a Debbie Downer: recovery isn’t so much about all the wonderful things I now have. It’s so much more about the horrible things I don’t.

#alcoholism #confessional #lettherebehope #diariespodcast

Well, I didn’t actually “call in” because that would require talking to someone. Instead I sent emails to save any verbal embarrassment. ↑

I watched A LOT of movies when I was drinking. ↑

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