July 22, 2005

• Meaningful Human Contact

  This week’s full moon followed closely by the Mercury retrograde station seems to have shaken my world.  The chart 
  for the full moon reveals that at that moment, Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars,
  Uranus and Pluto were all aspecting my fascinating (to me and possibly,
  as a peculiar case study, to astrologers) curse/blessing intensity pattern. 
  Figuratively speaking, I’m jumping all over the place — forward leaps,
  backward slides, jogging in place, treading water, going down
  *glub*.  I confronted some longstanding issues with Greyfox last
  night, and will write about that sometime soon.

  Writing, rather than the usual easy flow, is like swimming through
  molasses, but I feel compelled to do it.  Gotta get the stuff out
  there.  It will feel so good when it’s done.  Today I can
  really relate to that hisssss of creative/communicative steam Sarah talks about.  I feel that if I don’t let it out I’ll explode. 

  I’m a mess of conflicting drives.  I want nothing more than to veg
  out with the PS2, unless it would be to pig out on an orgy of forbidden
  sugary foods.  Breakfast this morning was two stale chocolate
  cupcakes I scrounged last night from the dumpster at felony flats (and
  I’ve promised myself all along that if/when I relapsed it would be on
  some exquisite gourmet goodies).  The only thing keeping me from
  turning it into a full-fledged chocolate binge is that they were the
  only bits of sweet chocolate in the house.  Thank all the gods
  that Doug ate most of them before he went to bed.  Along with the
  meat machine’s nagging me to get dressed and drive to the bakery for
  more, and the lower mind’s craving for the engaging routine of gaming,
  both curiosity and a sense of obligation are drawing me towards Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. 
  That was the package waiting for me at the post office yesterday, and
  theoretically neither Doug nor Greyfox will get to read it until I
  finish it, because I started it first.  Doug will probably end up
  inserting his own bookmark into it and passing it back and forth with
  me until one of us finishes it.

  Aaarrgh!  So, with all those conflicting pressures, what do I
  do?  I blog, of course — right after I get up and nuke a slice of
  the pizza we found in that same dumpster.  No, I’m not
  kidding.  *sigh*  Addicts in relapse are pathetic.  I’ve
  no clue how old the pizza is.  There’s no date on the Pizza Hut
  box, but the sell-by date on the cupcakes was six days ago. 
  Puh-thetic, I tell you!

  Last night’s NA meeting was… different.  Going over it in my
  mind, I can’t recall any of the men sharing.  The topic from Just for Today
  was surrender.  I read the meditation and was asked to elaborate
  on it, but couldn’t manage to get my thoughts on-topic.   I
  rambled and tried to edge in that direction, but mostly failed. 
  None of the rest of the women who spoke was on topic, either.  In
  fact, surrender was either irrelevant or antithetical to just about
  everything anyone said.  One woman made a rambling impassioned
  speech about “principles before personalities” and how no personalities
  around there were going to make her feel unqualified to be in those
  meetings and keep her away.  It was HER program as much as
  anyone’s, DAMMIT!  The chairwoman cut her off mid-spiel, for
  time.  I was hoping to speak to her after the meeting and thank
  her, because that matter of qualification is one that bothers me a lot,
  but she left before the closing prayer.

  But wait!  One man did speak, briefly.  He cut in during the
  opening part when the chair was asking if anyone had a program
  “birthday”.  He said he had 35 days free of tobacco and announced
  a new group of Nicotine Anonymous meeting there on Tuesdays now. 
  He asked for a thirty-day key tag, but the man who is our group’s
  treasurer and who takes a proprietary stance regarding the whole
  organization, refused.  Although official Narcotics Anonymous
  literature defines “drug” as, “any mood-changing, mind-altering
  substance,”  nicotine, caffeine, and sugar, for example, 
  clearly and indubitably drugs by that definition and in the opinions of
  many authorities, are apparently just too hard to kick, and so are
  accepted and condoned.  On the bright side, I guess, the program’s
  hypocrisy means I won’t have to start over as a “newcomer” after
  today’s cupcake and pizza binge.  Gluten is a drug, a peptide that
  has similar biophysical effects to heroin, y’know?  Pizza is
  loaded with it, as well as other similar peptides in the tomatoes and
  peppers, plus the sugar in the sauce…..

  When I really examine my feelings about 12-step groups, I feel like the
  gambler whose friend asked if he knew that the game he kept going back
  to was crooked.  He said, “sure, but it’s the only game in
  town.”  I detest the institutionalized hypocrisy, the blatant
  disregard of nearly a century of neuro-science, and the cult-like
  adherence to a party line that a few of the members feel compelled to
  parrot with passion whenever anyone voices dissent.  I go back
  again and again, partly because of my volunteer commitment to drive
  that van and get those inmates out of the rehab joint for an hour or
  two, and partly for some meaningful human contact.  Sometimes the
  meetings rise above the milieu and become extremely meaningful.  I
  guess it’s unreasonable to expect much on a Mercury station. 
  Meanwhile, last night I took on a new sponsee.  **heavy,
  whimpering sigh**
  

  • 3:48 pm
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