Lately I’ve been sort of floundering and rudderless. My life is fairly busy and full with friends, sponsees, girlfriend, family, various adventures, 4th Dimension… but with my career in my rear view mirror for just about 2 years now I dont really feel too much like I have a point other than to maintain the shit that I can do blindfolded.
What keeps pushing its way through the mundane, auto-piloted, Charlie Brown’s teacher drivel (“Blah, blah Neil! Blah blah blahdiddyblah Neil!) that fills the hours in my head is this insistent thought that I need to write something. Not like AA inventory number 71. But something substantive. Two things keep popping up over and over. Either fleshing my blog style out to a series of essays ala The Prophet, because my writing style is designed for that, or a Guide through the 12 steps for Atheists.
I am of course drawn to the idea of the latter idea because it will by its nature cause controversy. Child of Chaos, guilty as charged.
But that’s not the point of why I’m writing this right now. The greater point is that for years now people have been telling me “OMG!!! You NEED to write a book!!!” (insert eye roll) to which I reflexively say, as if I was a Neil Action Figure and you’d just pulled a string in my back, “I used to draw all the time, hours a day when I was a kid. It was my emotional outlet and release. The day I started getting paid to do that, it stopped. Havent been able to draw just for funzies since. Writing is that outlet now and I dont dare fuck with that.” I’ve been saying that shit for years like a sad wistful Sam Jackson’s Jules in Pulp Fiction quoting Ezekiel 25:17 right before he shoots someone.
Except now it occurs to me that what if that isnt even true? Anymore? …or ever? What if that has been nothing but an eloquent weapon to swat people down with so they dont notice I’ve just been being loyal to my suffering and the only thing being shot dead after my soliloquy is Hope?
What then? What if I was to suddenly bitch slap one of my mostest sacredest of cows, step right into its personal space and call it out? What if I dared to step right through my comfort zone and do it different….?

So here’s the gauntlet thrown down. The double dog dare:
In the interest of psychic spring cleaning – what old paradigm, written in stone commandment are you willing to toss on it’s head because it’s no longer a lovely accessory, it’s just a fucking ball and chain.

I woke up this morning to news that favorable winds, giving Japan it’s only real break in this continuing disaster, blowing radioactive air out to sea, had turned, and now are heading straight back into towns already decimated by a 9.0 earthquake and 30 foot tsunami. I thought about the core level terror that the idea of radiation sickness must inflict on the Japanese people. And that reminded me of Natsumi Michihira.

The family that raised me during the 60′s and 70′s here in the bay area were progressives. They never told me what their politics were, they only insisted that I vote. They were of opposite spiritual beliefs but left it entirely up to me to explore that realm or not. Their friendships showed me a cultural pluralism that ingrained so deeply in me that when I step foot other places where white is all they’re serving I feel uncomfortable. My father was the token round-eye in an Asian tennis club. Ma did theater and clowning. I knew plenty of gay people and met my first transsexual when I was probably 10. The families we spent most of our weekends with were a family of hippies raised by beatnik parents, a black & white couple from the east coast who did co-op farming, and a pair of Japanese immigrants, first generation, with two sweet daughters.
Toshi and Natsumi were soft spoken, polite and very nice people. Their daughters straddled the line between their parents traditions and the gratifications of California. They taught me about Japanese culture by exposing me to their fairly spartan lifestyle, festivals and especially their food! God do I love Japanese food, but then Natsumi was a great cook and first impressions are everything. Their english wasnt all that great but being influenced by them at such an early age it didnt occur to me that this was something to be mocked, that they were somehow retarded because they couldnt talk right. No, it caused me to pay closer attention, to notice the strained and embarrassed looks on their faces, to read other cues they gave – and most importantly to realize that they each knew at least two languages, and how ridiculous do I look thinking them inferior when I know but one. Megaduh.

In 1994 Natsumi fell gravely ill and died very quickly. The Big C. It was my first Buddhist funeral and I remember it as if it was last week. Each person walks up to an elaborate urn and sprinkles incense into it, then turns to the grieving family and silently bows. Looking Toshi in the eye as I did so was the most profound expression of grief, respect, love and compassion I’ve ever been a part of. Nothing in the dozens of western funerals I’ve attended touches that one act of caring. Crap, the memory of it makes me cry now. When I returned to my seat I read through bleary eyes the memorial card each of us received as we walked into the Temple.

Natsumi Michihira
Born 1940 Nagasaki, Japan
Died 1994 Sunnyvale, California

Natsumi died of Leukemia. The weight of it floored me. The enormity of all the ramifications of it. Of how this particular death could affect her husband. Of the choices they made to come here of all places, given that they’d been touched first hand by the bomb. In some respects I still cant wrap my head around being in their shoes. But it continues to speak volumes about their courage and character.

Now you probably think you already know what’s coming next; the Apology. And you’d be wrong. This blog isnt about rethinking my Grandparent’s decisions in the waning days of WWII. In fact, given the sheer brutal tenacity of the Japanese fighter, more so the closer we got to the Homeland, coupled with their belief in their Emperor as a near deity, dropping the bombs likely saved 2 million lives on both sides of a land invasion. No, what inspired my fingers to require abuse of this keyboard was a combination of thoughts and feelings.

I’ve heard several people prophesy the coming lawlessness and post-apocalyptic chaos that we all know our society would delve into a week after *we* had a Great Quake, followed by a 30 foot wash and rinse with no Daddy Guvmint to save us in any practical way would be replicated in the Land of the Rising Sun. It wont. Thinking so is simply myopic. Their national psyche is such that they’d rather sacrifice their own lives, moving in teams to their mortally wounded nuclear facility, asking older employees to go first because they’d be less likely to develop cancers before they passed of natural causes than younger workers. It’s shop owners *lowering* their prices in affected areas so that people can get what they need. It is the anti-selfish. It reminds me that courage and selfishness are mutually exclusive. It’s being afraid and doing the right thing anyway.

I think of Toshi and Natsumi and my Mom and Dad and I remember that the fruits of a tree are rarely seen by those that planted the seeds. I sure am grateful for the seeds they all planted in me. And I pray for the people of Japan. For what they’re showing the rest of the world. Churchill famously said that America always does the right thing – after it’s exhausted all other options. We are first and foremost a nation of Christian values – with a fat helping of ‘Hey! Look at Me! Arent I great?’ Often for no good reason. We usually arent bright enough to realize we should be embarrassed by our collective behavior. Today isnt one of those days. And I’m glad for the seeds planted so many years ago, to see the miracles amid the suffering thousands of miles away. It inspires me to be even quieter in how I go about being in service today.

I got caught up in a discussion online recently regarding the failings and hypocrisies of Bill Wilson. It reminded me of something I observed over the years growing up in AA. I got sober when I was 18. Came to the rooms at 22. My home group was pretty big and had some pretty Big Personalities that set the tone of things around there. It didnt take long to discover that they were human; they had failed marriages, poor business ethics, tempers. But man could they pitch a sermon and could they ever roll up their sleeves and jump in with a wet one. Accepting that the two personas werent mutually exclusive was tough for me. I was alternately inspired and let down by my heroes in AA.
About 10 years ago I found myself sitting at a big table at dinner with several friends after the funeral of one of those Big Personalities. This particular crew I’d known most of my sobriety. We came up together and now all had close to 15 or 20 years yet most of us had yet to see the age of 40. We all had worn several hats to each other over the years; friend, lover, confidant, betrayer, enemy, wing man, all of it. We looked around that table and realized that we were the next wave. That like it or not (and most of us didnt) *WE* were the next Big Personalities bobbing to the surface in our little sober piece of the world. And just as importantly, that *we* were all we had! It was time to set aside the petty grudges and grievances, to learn to laugh at each other’s quirks and be there for one another.

Over the last decade those old timers who taught me how to work with others also taught me what not to do. As I got older in my sobriety and came into my own, so to speak, I was invited to have a ringside seat for their lives outside the meeting halls and rumors. What I saw were some gentle souls, trapped by their personas, unable to be seen as human. It scared the bjesus out of me because I knew just how damn human I was! I had also resigned myself to the idea that ‘the Joy of Living’ that the book talked about was going to happen if I quit thinking about me and just simply started giving this thing back – making Love & Service the theme of every aspect of my life.

My current sponsor likes to say that sobriety is living well with unresolved problems. To that end I think part of why I have never been happier (in the midst of losing a leg, and a career, and the girl I thought would be at my bedside when I died, and nearly doing so 3 times in the last 3 years) is because I learned from those Big Personalities to not shy away from my failings and flaws. Hell, I often lead with them. I am prideful and vain, lousy with money, fairly lazy, perverted, and when in fear I seduce like a motherfucker. And then I laugh. Because everybody that knows me knows these things about me. I claim progress and own failure just like I ask my sponsees to do. My frankness lends credibility instead of undermining it. It inspires those around me to live freely by doing the same – and laughing.
I keep counsel with every one of those friends from that dinner table a decade back, and very often do so in full view of the future next wave. I want them to see what I’ve figured out; that the 12th tradition that everyone likes to chant, that “…principles before personalities” isnt about that snickering tone most have when they’re parroting it (thinking of someone they tolerate in the group). It’s about the steps and the principles in them. It’s not about Bill or Bob or John C. or Jim B. …or Neil L. It’s about one drunken bum helping another. No more, no less.

The way to saving my ass and my face at the same time – expose them both. For free and for fun.

Leaves From the Fool’s Handbook

1. How to Become Unhappy

Sit down quietly where you are not likely to be disturbed. Relax the body – and begin to think about yourself. It does not matter very much what you actually think, so long as it is about yourself. Think about yourself, and every time your thoughts wander to something higher, bring it back gently but relentlessly.

If possible think about the past. Think over all the mistakes you have ever made, going right back to childhood. Think of all the foolish things you have ever said or done. Think of all the opportunities you have missed and the time you have wasted. Especially think of all the occasions upon which you have been badly treated. Consider carefully the injustices of which you have been the victim and think how much better off you might be in various ways today if only other people had behaved properly in times gone by. Remind yourself vividly of the unkind things other people have done to you and rehearse the incidents in detail, feeling as angry or hurt as you possibly can at each recollection. Even if a particular person has not actually offended you realize that he might have done so if he had had the chance, and tell yourself that he has probably talked about you anyway.

Think about your body and wonder if your age or your job or the climate isnt beginning to tell. See if you cannot discover an ache or a pain somewhere; you probably can if you search long enough.

Think about business or finances as gloomily as possible and even if they are going well now, insist that this is probably too good to last.

In any case, think about yourself, that is the main point, and if you will keep this up faithfully for 15 or 20 minutes, there will be no doubt about the result. You will have attained your goal.

- Emmet Fox

Reading this last night made me chuckle at first because of how ridiculous it sounds at first blush. But really, isnt this an addict’s unconscious default? This is exactly the shit I say to myself in the back of my head in that Charlie Brown’s Teacher tone; “Blah, blah, blah Neil Blah, blah, Neil blah, blah…”. It happens all day long. So much so that I’m actually impressed with myself, jarred in a way, when my thinking turns towards someone else, their welfare, or (shock of shocks) the present moment. I feel better for a minute, become impressed with myself for thinking of others, slip into a little righteousness over how other people should think like this, and Voila! I’m right back to default sleep mode.

It’s no small wonder that those of us so inclined to that Anonymous Thing actually go to meetings and have epiphanies regarding higher thought and thinking of others. It isnt our default to do that.
I often joke that when I got sober I thought about Me 99% of the time. If I thought of you it generally had something to do with how you effected Me. 28 years later, on a good day I bet I think of Me 75 – 80% of the day. And Holy Shite, those are AMAZINGLY GOOD days!!! My hope is that by the time they’re standing at the urn of me, getting ready to spread Me over the shield at the 50 yard line of the Oakland Coliseum I will have lowered that ratio to a steadfast 60/40. Me first of course.

But you get the point – Me thinking about Me never ends well. For Me or you. It’s invariably a closed loop system with the gears greased by fear, pride, sloth, envy, greed, lust, anger, gluttony and so on. And it’s always focused on the past or the future. Never right now, this second, writing this blog (or in your case, reading). Love – brotherly or otherwise, integrity, courage, willingness, honesty, open mindedness, humility, service; they cant happen anywhere but now. And they are much more apt to happen when I’m looking you in the eye, wondering how I can help. How can I add to. How can I give back. Behold, that 40%. You first.

A sponsee texted me last week wondering how he was supposed to love himself. I responded ‘practice esteemable acts’. I have poked fun over the years at people who slap post-its on their mirror reminding themselves how great they are. I’ve always considered this to be sort of a punchline to that aforementioned closed loop thought process.
A few years back I hit a horrible bottom in sobriety. It leveled me, and in my little phoenix act I recommitted to the Steps. I especially recommitted to being in service to others. Helping others was a duty I’d performed over the years because it was what was expected of me. I frowned on the idiots around me who gleefully proclaimed that it was a selfish program and that the justification for that hypocrisy was that it was a save your own ass deal; that they stayed sober when they worked with others. That always left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt like a lie, a betrayal of everything I’d ever read in The Book. Like it was performing the act without it’s soul. All that duty and ‘what’s in it for me’ reminded me a bit of married sex.
But now it was different; I truly enjoyed being in service. It donned on me that as I was looking you in the eye, looking to add to you in some way that those principles I was sharing washed through me as I offered them to you. Three years into this experiment in altruism I was brushing my teeth one morning and it dawned on me – for the first time in my life that I wasnt bad looking and was a pretty good guy. Epiphany. No post-its. This change in consciousness happened while I was busy doing other things. Busy not thinking about me. Loving myself was a bi-product of thinking of others!
Now I know the alanons are going to pipe in with some drivel about how they’ve been thinking about others their whole lives and boundaries and yadda yadda. I call bullshit. Go back to that 1% I referred to at the beginning of this manifesto. Alanons in their throes (of which I have been from time to time) are among the most underhanded and manipulative humans I’ve ever known, all the while ‘thinking of others’. In service with the expectation that I’ll get mine. No better than sober drunks practicing that brand of ‘I’m doing this service for me’ except without the guts to admit it. Either way it’s soulless.

My sponsor back in the 90′s was a fiery old man named John. He always used to say that I had to do it for free and for fun. He’d pump his fists in the air when speaking and rage passionately about the 12th step being the Joy of Living. Yes, I thought he was a bit off his rocker, but there was no denying his sense of surety and conviction. He knew of what he spoke! I had faith that he knew something i didnt. Last week I found myself pitching at a meeting. I gave a good deal of what i just shared right now and by the end of it my fists were raising, I was roaring (just a little bit) and nothing else mattered but that maybe just one person out there heard it, got what I needed to give. It didnt matter if I pissed people off. Hell, sometimes that’s precisely when I know I’m on the right track! The Truth shall set ye free! But first it’ll piss you off. And i caught myself. I lowered my hands and apologized, laughing. Just like a wild-eyed old man who once met me where I was at. Thanks for planting those seeds, John Carney. Altruism aint such a bad deal.

• In step one I will often ask older sponsees to write down everything during their day that frustrates them or pisses them off. We all know the AA politically correct answer to the question “What do I have power over?” (in Stepford/cult/pod person voice) “I have power over my own thoughts and actions. I have no power over those around me.”
Good sponsee. pat. pat.
This all but ruins the entire rest of the step process because I’m building a house on the foundation of a lie. In principle, yes. The sponsee was telling the truth. But its the truth told from pulling the string in his back. The honestanswer is that everything in my day that pisses me off or frustrates me is something I think I have power over. And these are the things that I need to focus on in steps two and three!

• Step four has me write who I’m resentful at, what happened, the areas of my life affected and finally my part. HUGE set up for a victim stance. What dawned on me after having been here awhile is that I am the only common denominator in all these scenarios. So I have long timers read the list backwards: I am (selfish, dishonest, inconsiderate, self seeking & frightened) [column 4] because I dont trust God in these areas of my life (sex, security, social ambitions, emotional, financial security, self esteem, personal relationships) [column 3]. It causes these situations (the resentment) [column 2] with this person [column one].
The look of horror, rationalization, resignation and acceptance the first time the committee gets knocked off their lazily tilted board room chairs using this redirection is just fucking awesome! When the lightbulb goes on over their heads its truly having a ringside seat for a New Freedom and a New Happiness. There are of course exceptions. I dont read the childhood stuff, what I refer to as ‘original sin’ resentments backwards. I had no hand in being raped as a child, or abandoned, or otherwise abused. What i have them look at there is in how I’ve made countless, blameless people pay for the harms done me as a child.
As a whole, this redirect makes looking at my character defects in 6 & 7 a great deal more productive.

• Step 8 & 9. I do NOT put myself at the top of my amends list. This is a wildly unpopular move from most other’s perspective. I do this for a couple of reasons. If I’m looking at these steps from the view of Brotherly Love and Justice and I am following the directive in the book of being hard on myself and easy on the other fellow then putting myself at the top of the 8th step list taints everything else I do here. I had my best interest in mind during every shitty thing I am attempting to clean up here. Loving myself first before I can clean up my messes is a circular, empty exercise in selfishness and self centeredness. I gain self esteem by practicing esteemable acts, in this case making things right, not by thinking more about myself. We close most meetings with the Lord’s Prayer. In it there is the passage “[God] forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us.” Reread that. The ramifications are huge. What it says there is that I am forgiven as i forgive you. It also says that I am impelling God to make this happen. I need only be willing and to practice brotherly love to make it so. I am purely a conduit for God’s love to work through me to make things right and as it flows through me, to you, I am forgiven or cleansed with that love as well. Boom. That simple. That cant happen by thinking about myself more. And I am by no means a christian. But the principle is Universal.

I hope these lil tidbits help. They’ve given me great freedom from the sneaky little traps my mind lays for me. In making me a victim it retains its control. Being a victim separates me from you and God. As the old saying goes “I identify my way in and compare my way out”. That includes the sneaky trick of lamenting others’ victimhood.

A month ago I started sponsoring a fellow who I’d known around the rooms for many years. He approached me because he’d heard that once upon a time I’d trafficked meth in sobriety and he figured I’d understand his addiction to power and adrenaline. True enough. As we were standing there I asked him if he had any digits in his phone that he knew he could make quick cash with. He said yes. My response was to kill em. Out came his cell and God bless the willingness of the desperate - delete, delete, …SIGH… delete.
I was so proud of him for the courage that took.

Two days later a very rude and uninvited thought popped into my head. Neil? Yes. Do you have the very same balls to delete the names from your cell and social networking sites that you know you can call to get a quick fix of validation?

Fuck.

I stewed on that one for another two days. Not because i needed to have a debate in both houses followed by a 2/3 super majority passage to enact. Oh no. The bald face truth of that double dog dare meant it was all over but the shouting. I spent that two days grieving the loss of one of my oldest and dearest safety nets. The clarity of what I HAD to do was unshakable; I could not, would not, ever have happiness in my life in a love relationship unless I stopped touching base with my past. Holding onto it, even with just a finger tip, was the death of my last relationship and would forever be in the way of my ability to be present with anything new in my future. You cant unknow something like that. So I either trust God or I dont. Fuck.

Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, …SIGH… delete.

And it was done. I’ll be damned if there wasnt a huge sense of relief that washed over me. And what’s this…? Hope? As with every other rock that I’ve grudgingly handed over to that Power I dont understand, i am amazed at how much lighter I feel after I surrender what wasnt truly mine in the first place. I feel right-sized again. Free. Buoyant. Better prepared for this next adventure. All because I told a guy what I needed to hear.

Apologies in advance to all of you that just said “Fuck.”

An oldtimer named Bob, with 35 years chaired the meeting we have at my place last night and he reminded me of a pivotal moment in my life/recovery. A decade ago I found myself sitting at lunch with Bob and my sponsor. I was quietly tortured with the loss of a lover and in the midst of wrestling really hard with the idea that I was becoming an oldtimer myself. I didnt want it. I just wanted to be one of the fellas, though I knew that even among the crew I came up with, that I had the most time in the bunch and had somehow managed to stay in the middle more consistently than the rest of us. I had become the Shell Answer Man, the go-to guy. I hated it. I always had this vague sense that people were watching me, half for hope, half looking forward to having a good view when I fell. Ever so slowly (cunning, baffling, powerful even) I began to succumb to my own perceived relevance and laid a trap for myself from which I saw no way out; I couldnt have a bad day.

The gift that Bob gave me that day as he pulled his hair and waved his arms in frustration over his life falling apart in front of us (and more importantly, in front of ME since I didnt know him all too well) was permission to be human. His ass was falling off and he didnt seem to care too much who was there when it was his turn in the barrel or who might be the one to help *him* when he needed it. This was a revelation to me and a major turning point in my life. In the years since I recommitted myself to being in service. Not as a dutiful obligation required of me to keep my seat in AA but as the theme of the 12th step promises; as the Joy of Living. Anyone who’s read my blog knows I pretty much lay it all out there. Sometimes I got it figured out, laying it on the heathens. Sometimes I’m winding my ass and scratching my watch. Hell, I’ve never been 45 years old before. What’s that supposed to look like? But I do it semi-publicly because it frees me from that Tower of Guru, it lets me bleed like everyone else. And because I figure it also does for others what Bob did for me that Saturday afternoon; it gives them permission to be just one more drunk in AA walking through life – together.

Being of service works both ways. I’m pretty damn good at being there for others and taking a certain amount of pride in that. Which ironically, quietly sets me apart from my fellows. But what kind of selfish prick am I when I deny friends, family, and fellow AA’s the very same gift of being able to give back! Bob planted the seed in me the answer to a question that had haunted me since the first time I read a statement in the 4th step in the 12 x 12 much earlier in my sobriety. “The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being.” That seed has grown into my own recreated definition of Humility; Humiliation is you laughing at me – Humility is me laughing right along with you.

Thanks Bob.

So sweet, warm and seductive.
An accidental Roman suicide.
Just a break, an escape.
Not a promissory note for this ride.
What I’m feeling, it’ll pass.
Not worth the death of choice.
Look how far I’ve really come
This world, she needs my voice.

I was reminded of a time a decade back sitting in my menacing black car in my menacing black shades sporting my menacing bla… er, tattoos at a stop light with my head playing my Very Favorite Movie (the version where I’m only missing two toes) when this old Indian woman walks casually past me in the crosswalk. She looked right at me in this calm sort of way that struck me. Two seconds later her grand daughter comes skipping behind her, stops dead in front of my car and with a big ‘I just cashed in with the tooth fairy’ smile she starts waving all Gumpishly right at me.

I bawled. Which at the time wasnt too uncommon but this was the first time I’d cried tears of Hope.

There was no Hope today, but a reprieve. It made me wonder if God has this girl’s number on speed dial at Ethereal Central Casting or something. She made me chuckle. She broke the spell.

The tears came two hours later as I was manically cleaning and a random text came in from a number I didnt know. “Am very happy to have you in my life again. I did miss you my friend.” I bawled. Which at the time isnt too uncommon but this was the first time I’d cried tears of Hope.
Come to think of it, I hate this movie. How about we see Pirates of the Caribbean this time. I already have the leg and the costume.