Procrastination

I'm in a complete work frenzy. Deadlines, trips, meetings, etc.

So of course this morning the first thing I do is start surfing through my favorite blogs.

I took Spider's test.

Drumroll....

What animal would best suit your personality? A DOG. You are one of the best friends that someone could ever ask for. A very loyal, compassionate person who is always there for close friends and family members who are in a tough time. You are someone who can be counted on time and time again and never let small grudges get in the way of a good friendship. But unfortunately, you are very dependant, and every now and then someone will take advantage of your loyalty, and it is most often not until you end up hurt that you realised your foolishness.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Although I am definitely a less socially and morally developed dawg than Spider, I hope this means we get to be in the same kennel sometime and maybe even share a bowl of kibble. (OK, I'm still just a bit jealous of Spider's and Hypoxic's weekend dinner).

I've been a little (lot?) off-balance mentally and emotionally since last week. I hope I have time to bore you all with some of the details sometime soon.

Take care all.

Flip

Oenophobia; What Went Around May Be Coming Around (It's Only Fair); Lurkers

Although I travel almost every week, this week’s trip involved traveling with, meeting with and entertaining both current and prospective clients…all under the microscope of our company’s senior management. Today I’m mentally, physically and emotionally drained. I’m also trying desperately to catch up on other blogs. The best I can do is a few odds and ends.

• I am blessed with amazing people in my life. Night before last our company hosted an expensive dinner including the aforementioned senior management, clients and prospects. Shortly after arriving at the restaurant, I was given the (virtually inescapable) "honor" of choosing the wines for the dinner. Before I got sober one of my favorite drugs was wine. The more expensive the better. After two years I have reached a point where I can usually attend functions where the wine flows freely without having to repeat the Serenity Prayer over and over. This was different.
  
  I wasn’t tempted to drink. I just panicked. I wanted to run out of the restaurant. Run for safety.
  
  The sommelier was making recommendations. I started nodding my head, sweating, searching for the "eject" button. He said I could taste before choosing. Too loudly and stridently I said, “I DON'T WANT TO TASTE THEM.” I looked past the sommelier to see the CEO of our company chatting with one of our main clients about two feet away.
  
  The people on my team are the greatest. Several of them are good friends who know much of my story. One of them suddenly appeared at my side and asked me if I needed help. He gracefully took over. I was able to slip away with dignity, sipping on my Diet Coke.

• Last week, out of the blue, my wife received an email from her old high school sweetheart. First communication in decades. He is now divorced. Flip's mind is working overtime. What if... past; What if... future. I'm already learning some lessons. Stay tuned.

• To any lurkers: You are always welcome here. My experience: I lurked for a while. Commented on other blogs for a while. Then, with encouragement (thanks again Tom!), started blogging. With each step the experience became richer.
  
  Happy Friday all!
  
  Flip

Heroes

St. Francis is one of my heroes. He inspires me to be a better person.

Spider is one of my heroes. If you have not done so please read this.

Thank you Spider.

Flip

What I Learned Over The Weekend

This will make more sense if you read the past two posts, "Afraid" and "More Afraid" and the associated comments.

1. When all worked up and itching to post: write, review, revise, WAIT, review, revise THEN post.
2. Real friends let friends blog. This can include pointing out when they think friends may be communicating something they don’t mean (thanks again Spider).
3. When correcting a post, leave the original and just post a subsequent correction.
4. Holding one’s self to a high standard is cool. Being unnecessarily critical of one’s self is not beneficial to anyone.
5. It’s (past) time for Flip to do Step Eight (make a list of all persons I have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all) and Step Nine (make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others).
6. Blog friends rock!

I love you just the way you are. Thank you for extending the same courtesy to me even when I don't think I deserve it.

Flip

More Afraid

Written in response to comments on my previous post.


Spider et al: I sincerely apologize for my insensitive implied judgment of anonymous sex. What I was trying to communicate was my feeling about ME personally engaging in it behind my wife's back and I REALLY missed the mark. What I wrote does not represent my feelings about anonymous sex that anyone else engages in, married, unmarried, partnered or unpartnered, and I really really didn't mean it to come across the way it so blatantly did. I realize everyone's circumstances are different and it is not my place to judge what they do. If I had taken a little time to read and reflect on what I had written (wow, a novel idea Flip!) before posting I might have realized what I was actually communicating.

I hope anyone who read those words will please accept my humble apologies and "strike them from the record."

They are now officially struck from the post.

Hypoxic, Spider and Bibydays (and many others), you are true friends to me and I feel the hugs.
Writing "Afraid" really helped me realize that I need to start immediately on my Eighth and Ninth Steps (making my amends) otherwise I will eventually start drinking again, and then it's all over.

Once more, I'm sorry for any judgment of anyone other than myself that the previous post communicates or previously communicated. It was written in complete ME mode....as usual.

Thanks, and hugs to you all!!

Flip

Afraid

In 2004, after announcing to my wife and children that I needed to move out and work on the “gay thing” and all hell broke loose, I never did move out.

Why? I was afraid. I’d like to think there was more to it than that. I'd like it to be this big, complicated thing. It wasn't. It was simple. It was fear.

As I planned and executed that drama, I imagined it as a big coming out story. Coming out is brave. It’s a declaration of honesty. There are lots of books about it, movies too. What a noble thing to do.

The betrayal? The lies? The boyfriend? It's not noble, it's sordid.

TIME OUT! Before you delete me from your “favorites” list never to return, I must say I truly believe coming out is noble. It's a declaration of truth. It deserves to be written about. Filmed. I admire and draw inspiration from those who are out or coming out.

Unfortunately, two years ago what I was doing was not coming out. I came out back in the mid 70's when I told my future wife I was attracted to guys. She told me she loved me and accepted me. Simple. Noble.

Two years ago I was a self-centered jerk who found a noble storyline I hoped would draw attention away from the sordid facts. Cowardly. Afraid.

TIME OUT AGAIN! Before any of you jump to defend me against myself (are you there?), I love you, but please don’t. With as little drama as I am capable of (and that's a lot) I’m honestly trying to own up to precisely what I did. No more, no less.

To those of you who are out or coming out, I apologize for implying in previous posts, comments and emails that the path I took has anything to do with what you are going through. I have liberally passed out pseudo-advice in the guise of “my experience.” Yes, see the dirty-needle heroin addict pass out advice on chemotherapy to cancer patients fighting for their lives.

Enough. That's as far as I can go right now.

You guessed it. I’m afraid.

Flip

Simple

[Apologies. Blatantly stolen from a favorite Far Side cartoon.]

Blahblah blah Flip’s Needy Blahblah!

Blah storm clouds blah blahblah. Blah blah blah, gloomy blah-blah-blah-blah feeling blah blah blah blah me.

I blah blah blah blahblah, but blahblah blah blahblah blahblah I blah I blah. Blahblah, I blah blah blahblah blahblahblah myself. Blah blah I blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blah I blahblah blah blah blahblah.

Blah my blahblahblahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah [stupid pun]:

1. Blah blah blahblahblah AA meetings blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah. I need blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blahlblah blah blah sane.
2. Blah blahblah blahblah blah blahblah blah. I blah blah blah blah emotional drunk blah blah.
3. Blahblahblah blahblahblahblah blahblah: blah blah blah blahblah Dr. M. Blah blah blahblahblah blahblah blahblahblahblah blah blah for me, blah blah I blahblah blah blah blah blahblah. I blah blah blahblah.
   

Blah me blahblahblahblah blah blahblah I am not blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blahblahblah blahblah blah blah Flip grow up and stay sane, blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah BLAH blah my (blah)blahblahblahblah blah blah blahblah blahblah blah blah.


Timeline

11:00-11:30 Write first draft of post
12:00-1:00 Attend AA meeting. Topic: "Selfishness -- self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles."*
2:00-2:15 Revise post. Publish.

* Alcoholics Anonymous p. 62.

Have a great day.

Flip

Meme Finally

Ask a Question, Answer a Question

This meme was "originated" by SupaMum, and here are the rules: I ask a question and who I tag answers the question and then tags other people and asks them a question. The question can be anything. And it can cause a thread conversation. Last Tuesday I was tagged by Woe with the following question:

What is your passion or life's calling?

Being a master procrastinator I have thought a lot about my answer and been unable to post anything else until it appears. (A case of "procrastipation"?)

My impulsive answer is, “Helping others.”

I don’t like that answer because it’s way too easy, it doesn’t feel rigorously honest and most glaringly the preponderance of my actions argue otherwise.

The rigorously honest answer is, “I don’t know…yet.”

Until then the best I can do is copy down what I wrote last March when, as I started my Fifth Step* with my sponsor, he asked me, “What do you want out of your life?”

Already painfully aware of my inability to answer the simplest of questions, he wisely told me to write down the answer immediately before I could start babbling. I wrote:

1. I want to be loved.
2. I want to be at peace.
3. I want to quit pursuing things that I think will make me happy that [actually] make me feel like shit:
   a. Wanting to drink
   b. Criticizing people
   c. Having anonymous sex
4. I want to live the life I’m supposed to live instead of trying to orchestrate a life that satisfies my passing fantasies / urges.

There you have it.

And with the question, “What is the first thing you would do (besides review your choice of news outlets) if Fox News reported that earth was unquestionably going to be destroyed by a huge meteor at midnight (your) local time?”

I tag:

Drew

Cymber

Hypoxic (c'mon, play...please, please, please????)

Later.

Flip


* Step Five: “Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” The “admission” typically involves reviewing a written Step Four: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

Halo Adjustment

I fear recent posts have left me sounding a little too pious and noble for my own good. If so, I am misleading you and myself. Like most alcoholics I tend (as in lean heavily) towards the grandiose and self-centered. I believe “narcissistic” is the psychological term. Honestly, I abhor and fight this tendency, but the symptoms of narcissism include false modesty in order to attract attention and garner contradictory opinions which could be considered praise (eg Flip: "I’m a complete shit." Kind Reader: "No, you are very pious and noble…")

I have made much progress from the person I was in early 2004. I still have a long way to go. Numerous, large steps backward are not uncommon after inching forward.

Although lately I've been blessed with a reduction in desire to "act out" sexually, I do from time to time check out Craig’s List and similar old haunts for listings and pictures. A good idea? No. Do I do it anyway? Yes. See! Not so pious and noble.

Yesterday I saw a listing from a married man about my age living in my part of town. He is looking for a like-minded individual to engage in exclusive (implication “safe”) same-gender play. (Is that euphemistic enough?)

Advice I have received to help avoid temptation is to immediately dismiss potentially harmful thoughts and impulses as I would brush a burning ember from my skin. I like that analogy.

I replied to the listing.

I've since received a request for more information about me to which I also replied. Hmmm. I think the gremlins may be emerging from hibernation. My stalker is peering in the window.

Here’s my chance to see just how much of my recent chaste behavior is due to a noble intent to practice rigorous honesty to stay sober and ultimately have a chance to be the person I would like to be, and how much of it is because of the current psychotropic drugs I am taking along with my ever-present fear of getting bounced out of the house by my long-suffering wife if I do anymore stupid, dishonest things.

To paraphrase the illustrious Dr. M (my shrink) “King Baby” is back and he wants what he wants.

Stay tuned.



On a related note. Borrowing from a local newspaper columnist’s contrivance, I would also like to offer:

Flip’s Previous Week in Review – The Seven Deadly Sins

Categories

Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.


Rating Scale
1 EXTREMELY VIRTUOUS
2
3
4
5
6
7 EXTREMELY SINFUL


Summary of Last Week

Pride – 6. Looking down on parents of my child’s friends because they seem like complete nerds. Being tempted to write posts that might attract praise rather than enlighten and inform readers / myself. Getting offended when soliciting advice from a former boss / good friend when the advice might be interpreted to indicate that I am not perfect.

Envy – 6. Continuing to question my path of staying married vs. leaving the marriage (and being able to indulge my inner slut guilt free), specifically focused on blog friends who are pursuing the path to freedom.

Gluttony – 4. Inability to stop eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and gummy Life Savers. Diet Coke is still a major problem too.

Lust – 4 and increasing. See post above. Outlook cloudy and somewhat ominous for the week ahead.

Anger – 5. See Pride, specifically reaction to advice from colleague / friend.

Greed – 3. No major outbreaks although interest in new St. Francis-like career was diminished at the end of the week when I realized I would probably be making one-third of my current salary even though several years of full-time graduate work would be required to enter the field.

Sloth – 7+. Much at-work-time spent reading blogs, writing posts and surfing Airliners.net and Flightlevel350.com. Have completely fallen off the exercise wagon.

Overall Score – 5.0

Cheers!

Flip

Stand Still

Most mornings I start my day by reading short, daily selections from four spiritual / recovery type books.

In one of these books, Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men, each day's selection begins with a quote from a famous or seemingly-famous source followed by a message related to the quote.

Today's quote seems relevant to a number of (all of?) our lives. Plus I remembered it after reading and reflecting on Mr. Secret's random thing "c)" in his post today.

In addition to reading it as written I've tried substituting "truth", "destiny", "bliss" and "relationship" (Rey?) for "livelihood." Try it. Try your own substitutions.

"Why are you rushing so much?" asked the rabbi. "I'm rushing after my livelihood," the man answered.

"And how do you know," said the rabbi, "that your livelihood is running on before you, so that you have to rush after it? Perhaps it's behind you , and all you need to do is stand still."

--Tale about Rabbi Ben Meir of Berdechiev

Have a great weekend, and thanks for being there.

Flip

Beyond the Lights

I've reposted this because originally the next to last verse of "Beyond the Lights" was left out. It has now been added below.

************************************************************************************

In memory of L. P.

L. died one year ago this month. He died the day before through the grace of the God of my (mis)understanding and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous I achieved one year of sobriety.

L. was like a brother to me and to my wife, although he was much more present in our lives than either of our brothers. He was part of our children’s lives from before they were born. They called him “uncle.” My family saw him almost every week of our lives for almost 25 years. Until those last few months.

I was sobering up, L. was sinking. I tried to help him. I shared my experience. I told him I would do anything I could to help him. I didn't.

What were we doing while he slipped so far beyond the lights?

This is not about guilt. I didn’t kill L. Alcoholism killed him. But I learned a good lesson the hard way. The next time I tell someone I will do anything I can to help them I will better understand what that means.

L., we miss you and love you more than you could ever know. More than we ever let you know.

Rest in peace, my friend.

***********************************************************

Beyond the Lights
Cheryl Wheeler

Thought you'd bide your time and play your part
but you were wrong dear.
Somewhere down the line your lonely heart
could not belong here.
And in some frame of reason, beyond our vision,
Your love lagged behind and fell apart
Without a soul to hear.

On a night like this the stars don't shine
and there's no moonlight.
We're like you I guess, we bide our time,
try to play our parts right,
and wonder where you gathered your angry sorrow.
Through the rolling mist the scenes unwind.
They seem so clear tonight.

And when I sleep you are crying still,
The way you touch your brow, hang your head,
I never knew and I never will,
The voices haunting you, a thing that I could do.

Were they in your stars
those lonely nights, tormented hours?
Something snapped your spars
and slacked your lines and took your powers.
Did no one see you sinking till you'd gone under?
While you slipped so far beyond the lights,
were we just watching ours?