Living with my Soul
When I objectify a woman I stop paying attention to my soul.
When I smoke, drink or take prescription drugs wrongly, I can’t feel my soul.
Feeling my soul is very useful, if Luke is correct, and the Kingdom of God is truly within.
Can you imagine how much perspective (sanity) you would get if you recognised, while in this life, that part of you is eternal.
When I overeat or drink coffee, I sever my connection with my soul.
When I am in conflict with someone I am paying attention to my body, my mind and my feelings…but, not my soul.
While a doorway may not be the most impressive part of a house…it is necessary to lead you to the more impressive parts.
Breathing deeply and focusing on the solar plexus (thymos) is the most efficacious way to access my immortal soul, for me…as the 12 steppers would say.
By the way, when I masturbate or have sex indiscriminately I totally truncate my connection to my soul.
Sotcc and Chastity
I am willing to live Sotcc and Chastity and embrace prayer... to the best of my ability today.
I am willing to live, think and act humbly by acknowledging that Sotcc and Chastity is God's will for me today.
I am willing to serve others today to help them get, and stay, sexually sober.
I am willing to pray the prayer "Sister may no harm come to you for me" for every female I come in contact with today so that I am free from intrigue, fantasy, and objectification.
I am willing to take phone calls from people who are seeking to define their own conception of God so that they can be sexually free.
I am willing to joyfully celebrate this national holiday of the founders of our nation.
I'm willing to rest today and "Lie down in green pastures "as Psalm 23 says.
I am willing to play today, to show my son how to have fun.
I am willing to follow my food plan today...so that I am not fat.
I am willing to use breath prayer to calm my mind and make it "susceptible to divine influences".
I am willing to set boundaries with people who are harmful, spiritually confused or just uninterested in their own souls, to protect myself.
I am willing to announce limits about what I'm capable of doing today... and be at peace with that.
I am willing to be grateful today for all the many blessings God has given me.
Easter
I rose up from near death;
the near death of faith,
the complete death of love (for anyone but my son) and the near physical death from three years of exhausting fighting for him.
But, we freed him and my heart healed, and my body.
I rose from that near death and celebrated all day long on this President's Day 2025.
He saw a feelings doctor (for his healing).
The Prior took him to play in a park.
I found his iPad and we installed a new game.
We all kicked the soccer ball and then we saw two movies.
Then we worked out and then we read stories all night.
I have healed and my son is healing.
It has been our Easter...
"Glory to God in the Highest and Peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased"
Luke 2:14
Renouncing the Fifth Tradition
I have critics. Hell, I have enemies...
My main criticism is that I talk about other programs.
This is seen as a violation of Tradition Five which says " Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers".
I understand this complaint. AA does not want to fall apart the way the very successful temperance group "The Washingtonians", did in the mid 19th Century.
But, how sober can you be if you are masturbating, using porn, cheating on your wife, smoking, grossly overweight or wildly in debt or manically high on coffee?
Tom Powers, the author of the AA 12x12, saw this problem in 1958 and started All Addictions Anonymous which is still operating today.
I saw this problem in 1988 but tolerated it until 2010 and then started PrayerCall because I wanted to be safe talking about these other problems.
I accept that I have critics...
Suffering
"Pitiful and incomprehensible demoralisation"...
I saw that in a man's face today.
Which addiction it is, doesn't really matter.
Rage, self-pity, confusion, despair, hopelessness…
Please Higher Power help me to surrender any addictive behaviour or thoughts to you… And help me be grateful for what I have.
Have mercy on us all...have mercy.
Faith...
When I think of faith, the first thing I think of is faith in God.
But, there are other kinds of faith.
I know that I have complete faith and when things get bad enough, I will do something about them… But not a second before.
But, there is another kind of faith.
People have faith in the truth I am telling them... I cannot let them down.
Matthew 7:6
"Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces"
I did not do this recently. I shared the gift of Chastity with someone who resented it and there were violent results.
I will humbly obey this in the future...
Renewal
I started running again after a 10 day break of just doing mat work (core/pushups/yoga).
It felt very spiritual in that I began to feel enthusiastic about my recovery, because my food choices immediately got better.
On Valentine's Day weekend I ate out twice without a scale. That is perfectly legitimate in FA, but I ate foods I would not normally eat.
" Restricting " is a no-no in FA but " "Self-restraint carries the top priority rating" (AA 12x12)
Here is the Internet AI search:
"Self-restraint carries the top priority rating," is found in the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) "Big Book" specifically in Step 10, which emphasizes the importance of developing self-control as a key aspect of maintaining sobriety, placing it above other considerations in personal inventory and behavior modification."
The Ring
Pulchritudinous...like Ann Margret really. Needy, intensely intelligent, scattered like marbles falling on a poured concrete patio.
"I don't feel heard".
"I AM hearing you, I just don't agree with you", I replied.
"You are a grandiose narcissist snake!"
"Maybe...or I could just be simply disagreeing with you".
Tara had come from money. Money from producing rodeos that got politicised by backing Clinton when he was still Governor. That was okay, but her Dad had, what you could call "bad boundaries" and, according to her, had been sexual with her up into her twenties. Her father didn't like that kind of talk, made it bad for her and she left for Atlanta.
"Why do you even date me?"
It's true I had fallen instantly in love with her the moment I saw her walk through the door of a useless Episcopal church I performed at... God's "frozen people". I had been faithful to her, had tried to understand, but it was starting to fray.
"I date you because I love you and I am hopelessly attracted to you. I've asked you to marry me twice."
" But, you are so selfish and self- centered. You never give me what I want."
The item in question was a Lindy Star ring. It wasn't a Blue Sapphire, but, I was making $225 a week playing for rotund, depressed old white ladies who thought Jesus would make them thin. It was 500 bucks...but, I just didn't have it.
"Look, we can do it, we just have to stop drinking for a while, she softened. "We drink three bottles of Mateus a night. If we stop we could buy my ring in a month."
" I understand, but I disagree that we can stop."
"What do you mean? Of course we can stop. I can stop anytime".
I had seen Tara without a drink before. She was a tarantula under a dump truck.
"How about this? If we stop for a month we'll get your ring? Fair enough?"
"Okay, you dick" she laughed.
She was particularly amorous that night and expressive with an energy I hadn't seen in a long time.
Tara's sexual energy was almost genius level but it contained just a touch of desperation in it.
She had had a lot of therapy but there was still a trace of a child fighting for her life in her sexual expressions. I believed the stories about her Dad.
The next night we, in fact, did not drink, but, we were both snappy.
The following night it was all out war.
The third night when I came home from a Praise service, full of people who wanted everything from God, but weren't willing to change anything about themselves to get it, she was drunk as a Lord...so I joined her.
" You won't buy me my ring, you bastard".
"Look, we can't stop. Come with me."
We drove to yet another beaten up old church and when we walked in we heard the words " My name is Steve and I'm an alcoholic"
I came back. Tara did not.
Tara died shortly after that. The coroner's report said heart failure...but it was the Mateus.
Tara never got her ring...
Feeling God's Presence
God,
I feel you when I do service as a sponsor
I hear you when I do quiet time and you communicate with me.
I feel myself preparing to be clear enough to know your will by running doing yoga, and fasting.
I see you, fully, when I make my son laugh hard.
Surprisingly, I have recently begun to sense you when I do the administrative work to maintain the monastery.
I always really need you when I let go of any addictive substance or behaviour like nicotine, caffeine or overeating.
I familiarly feel your presence when I read books of the literary geniuses of the world who are positive, moral... and funny
I communicate with you when I use the tool of writing...as I am doing right now.
I feel calmed by your words when I read the Big Book, the AA 12x12, the Bible and the Koran
Hermes...
"I had a dream about you last night", and the prettiest girl I ever saw stood and for 20 minutes revealed things about me my closest friends didn't know.
I lowered my wire reading glasses, looked her straight in the eyes and asked " How old are you?"
She was eleven years younger than me...and I just wanted to make sure that the woman I was going to marry wasn't too young.
"Do you like these ties?" as she paraded me into Hermes, full of perfumes and plush hand-made horse saddles. At the time I had no taste for those things..."No".
Ally was the prettiest girl around and I could not believe my good fortune.
My best man, with a hint of lust, said " You are a very lucky man".
Ally had spent time as a private shopper for rock stars and the elite at Neiman Marcus and gave me a first edition of Gandhi's only book " My experiments with Truth".
She tried to warm up to my eleven year old daughter, but the only warmth she had was instilled by me...but, she was very pretty.
Try as we might, there was always something that always missed.
Finally, casually, in a Whole Foods, a girl passed and she breathlessly remarked " Isn't she pretty?"
Ah, and then I knew...
Jealousy
"Don't tell me about your 16 year old daughter...that means you've had sex with someone else! " shrieked Diane.
"That seemed just a tad jealous to me, I quietly, and calmly, replied.
I was running down Crissy Field.
Coming the opposite direction was a stunning Japanese woman, who simply cut her eyes in my direction, for split second.
I immediately turned around and chased her. At the pace she was going I was gonna only last about 90 seconds before my heart exploded, so I asked her to come see me perform that night. That started a three year relationship.
Diane was a sex machine.
She started her sex life in the coat closet, in the second grade, with her teacher molesting her. To her dying day, she would see that as love, not abuse.
Diane hated her mother with a burning passion and, at seven, began masturbating, under her blanket, in front of her mother. This began a life long passion for sex in public places.
I didn't even know what that was... but I certainly found out. It was dangerous...and exciting.
But the increasing danger and the mounting fearful jealousy was just too much for me...so I eventually left her.
I wistfully think of those passionate times...sometimes. But, Sotcc gives me some things I couldn't have with her: social resilience and serenity.
Those are better character qualities for a Dad, especially during frustrating times.
I am glad I was with Diane, but... I am gladder that I am gone.
The Soul Speaks
The best intrapersonal model is hopelessly passé. The inner child model uses an inner child, an inner adolescent and an inner adult. The adult speaks to the inner child and and adolescent and you get to know yourself but, you have to ask yourself the question who speaks to the inner adult?
The inner adult is the administrator. He is the one who pays the rent and utilities, groceries, insurance and taxes. He buys the clothes and the medicines, pays for swimming lessons, vacations and haircuts. He is the one who sees that the child is washed, combed his hair, is dressed and gets to school on time.
In this model, when the inner child is feeling hurt, needy, lonely, sad, or angry, the inner adult consoles him.
The inner adult also communicates with the inner adolescent about things like dating, having sex, doing homework, playing a musical instrument, and choosing colleges.
So the inner adult's job is to administrate for the child and adolescent, but, who consoles the inner adult?
There is yet another voice inside...that the ACA people have not yet discovered. It is the voice that speaks to the inner adult and that voice is… The soul.
Interpretive Flaws in God's Word
There is a terrible flaw in 12 step. It is the third and fifth tradition. Those two things have been distorted so that people are not allowed to talk about other addictions in any specific program.
That is insane. That means you can not take a drink of alcohol, but you can be fat, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, masturbate, use porn, gamble, debt, under work.
Like my betters Alice Miller, when she Renounced psychotherapy, it's time to renounce those traditions.
When AA started, 90 years ago this year, they had a 75% success rate now the success rate is 1.75.… There is a reason…And I know what it is.
So it's back to the computer keyboard for me.
Sotcc has helped me see this.
Honour
When I was 18, one of my acting out partners from the University of Virginia came home with me and she discussed me with my mother.
My mother said “Steve needs to find his honour .”
I realised, as we were listening to Psalm 119 today that… I have found my honour…Sotcc
Once there was a little boy...
His father went to war and saw and did some terrible things. He was gone a long time.
His mother, brother and he picked him up at the airport.
There was a great celebration in the neighbourhood.
That night the five year old boy, wanting to be near his long lost Daddy, crawled into bed with his mother and father and something abominable happened...his father began to rape him.
His mother suddenly wakened, realised what was going on, went to the closet, pulled out a gun and said " Stop or I will shoot".
He didn't stop. She didn't shoot.
She took the boy in the bathroom, and on a green towel on the floor, washed him and furiously crying said" Whatever you do, don't tell".
His mother put him to bed. He felt a loneliness he had never felt and crawled on the floor to get near the heating vent to be next to something. As he warmed something craggy, like lightening, appeared and his soul re-entered his body.
The next day the father, ashamed, locked himself in the bedroom.
The mother knocked on the door, with the little boy at her feet and said " Lonnie, come out it's okay".
The little boy felt confused, but he learned a lesson...sex was the most important thing in the world.
The next day the boy climbed the stairs from the basement, walked into the kitchen and asked his mother " Can we have sex again?"
The mother whitened, fearing they would be found out, told the father.
That night the father led the boy downstairs, put him in a blue navy duffle bag, hung him from the rafters of the unfinished basement and, with a baseball bat...beat him to death.
But then, something very curious and wondrous happened...
Three angels appeared and very gently cleaned his body...and brought him back to life.
The boy then walked up the stairs to the kitchen...and his father was afraid of him the rest of his life.
Carol was 15...
So was I...
I spent 10 months trying to "save" her to the then burgeoning Protestant youth religion...and then she introduced to the ways of love, with which she had some surprising familiarity.
Carol was gentle, tender and sexual, a combination of which I had had no experience ...and it was totally intoxicating.
It was lovely for about a year or more...and then we were eating each other's flesh, from the inside, with codependency.
I left her, but would try to go back a couple years, fifteen years and forty years later. She would leverage my weakness against her then current boyfriends to get what she wanted.
Finally it ended.
I said " You're fat!"
She said " You've got a little dick".
Yeah...That's when you know it's over.
Alona
Alona was 19 years old, 5'1" and 88 pounds of nothing but muscle and legs.
But, that's not what really shone.
She had been shut away in a cinder block square hut, with no refrigeration, no air conditioning, in 112 degree heat, from ten to twenty three years old by a mentally ill octogenarian woman.
Alona had single handedly rescued herself with nothing but a Catholic Bible. She was a hero. She was a spiritual genius.
We had a brilliant and epic love.
We had the most beautiful child you've ever seen, but then she fell into a depression, dove into the food… And never came back.
This began a three year war for Stevie which ended with twelve days with me, and two days for he, when she when she began to "smack him in the face".
There were many dead bodies left on the field...
"The Lord give us and the Lord take it away… Blessed to be the name of the Lord "
To be a spiritual warrior...
What does that mean?
The best writing on that topic is this:
"Take up the full armor of God: the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit...which is the word of God."
First, what salvation? It is a Latin word which means "to save".
Before I go to war I must save myself first. How? When Alexander the Great was dying he was asked " Who should inherit your kingdom?"
He answered " The strongest ".
So, I must not do anything that would weaken me. In this case any and all addictions.
The shield of faith means to protect ourselves from, as the Big Book says, that "evil and corroding thread"...doubt. Doubt in the Truth.
And finally, the Sword of the Spirit.
To wield the sword of the Spirit you must know the word of God.
What is the word of God?
It has been said recently that God's word is simply " Honesty, Courage and Love"...and that is good enough for me.
Spiritual Warrior Part 2
I grew up military, so I saw all types of professional warriors growing up.
Some people believe that all soldiers are bad, but that's not true. I saw honourable men who believed in fighting for their country and their families.
There were outliers, but they were very rare.
When I listened to the stories of the honourable solders they would talk about that the most important thing, after the raw courage to do war, was the inability the ability not to think about war when you were not actually doing the war.
Otherwise, you would go completely crazy. That's what makes you an outlier.
The same thing is true in spiritual warfare...you gotta take a break and go to a movie sometime
Terminal hip and fatally cool
The way I stand, with my right leg jutted out slightly, in a defiant stance.
The way I " saunter" when I walk.
My "bedroom" voice.
The way I cut my hair… When I had hair.
The form fitting shirts I have that show off my torso.
My women's stretch jeans that show off my thinness
...all because I am terminally hip and fatally cool.