iPoM 87

I heard a guy checking in that the only time he acted out was when he felt bad.

I only act out two times: when I feel bad… And when I feel good.

I act out when I feel bad, because I want to feel better.

I act out when I feel good, because I want to feel even "betterer".

Truthfully though, I want to act out, sometimes, when I’m right in between…When I just want to get “out of it”…just a little bit.

I felt that way today…But I stayed with it, and it passed.

PoM 88

I wasn’t very peaceful today. 

I felt the joy of service, the calm of prayer, the fun of laughter, the satisfaction of music, the pleasure of family…it was a wonderful day, but I did not stop to meditate or try to find my soul.

I can do that before the day is done.

PS: Finally got it as I counted my breaths and drifted off to sleep.

PoM 89 

Today was my son’s second birthday.

None of this would have been possible without AA…

I feel a deep peace from having made the decision to join them.

PoM 90

“He restores my soul”.

This line in this iconic prayer tells me several things:

  1. I do actually have a soul
  2. My soul can actually be lost
  3. With God’s help I can actually find my soul again

If I had to just wildly and randomly guess at what I might need to do so that God might restore my lost soul I’d postulate that I would probably need:

  1. Pray more than I normally would…so I would  remember God
  2. Not be so selfish, by serving others

But…I’d probably try to lighten up, too.

I mean, have you ever seen a baby laugh…how soulful is that?

PoM 91

Some days I wake up in my character defect of worrying:

Will Gummy accidentally fall out of the third-floor window of our apartment?

Will all the bad sexual things I’ve done in my life catch up with me one day?

Will Keaton ever work with Allen again?

Lord, help me not be Eeyore…

PoM 92

I asked one of the guys to review the new videos on the AWC site.

He said he didn’t like them… because he felt envious.

He said “You’re living the dream I want to live”.

The first thing that I assured him of was that “any success I am having is more God’s  success than mine”…That’s what it says in the AA 12 and 12, and I humbly agree.

40 years ago I was a fat drunk, tossing back handfuls of legal prescription medications every day, smoking 40 cigarettes a day and cheating on my wife.

Looking back at it, I had to “Give up the nightmare to get the dream”.

I had a girlfriend, who I would regularly convince to leave her boyfriend’s house, after my wife left for work, and come over to my house and have sex with me.

I thought it was a dream come true.

I had a beautiful redheaded, psychic girlfriend for four years. She was the smartest person I ever met after John Cage, but she had borderline personality disorder.

She seemed like a dream, too.

I dated a Japanese, self-described, nymphomaniac for three years. She was twice the athlete I am. For a sex addict, she certainly seemed like a dream come true.

On the other extreme: I married a pretty young Jewish woman, who I was with for five years.

We bought an architecturally state of the art, brand new, home and paid 2/3 of it off in two years.She was a buyer for Neiman Marcus and had exquisite tastes. She dressed like a model and decorated just as well.

But, she warned me about something before we got married...that she was sexually anorexic.

At the time…She seemed like a dream, also.

Then, I just gave up…and I was chaste for four years.

I gave up my dreams which, as you can see, were all, really, nightmares.

Then, after I totally surrendered the hope of ever having a relationship again, God put a woman in my life to marry and to have children with.

The message, for me, was: “I have to give up my nightmares… If I want the dream”.

To my friend I would ask: Are there any nightmare relationships that you’re holding onto, calling them dreams?