Month: May 2014

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events as meaningfully related, where they are unlikely to be causally related. The subject sees it as a meaningful coincidence. The concept of synchronicity was first described by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s.

Today is off to a good start.  I woke up and headed to the “Wake Up AA Group”.  There is an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Severna Park, MD not far from my house that meets daily @ 6:00 AM.

On the way home, I checked-in to Sexaholics Anonymous on the 7:30 AM DSR teleconference meeting. Notice the coincidence?

If that’s not clear, I’ll share another story.  Yesterday, my 10 year old daughter was walking around the house singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane“.  I quickly pulled up my favorite songs from www.grooveshark.com and played John Denver’s hit song.  Then found a nice YouTube video of him singing with Cass Elliot (click here).

I explained to my daughter that John Denver practically wrote how he would die in this song, because of a plane wreck he piloted.  In her innocence, she asked, “what happened to Cass?”.

Here’s another example, Dr. Carl Jung wrote a Letter To Bill Wilson in 1961.  He said, “I had no news from Roland H. anymore and often wondered what has been his fate”.  As most of you know, Bill W. is the founder of AA and Roland was a close friend of Bill who was very influential in the pioneering days.  Read more

BTW, today Monday, May 26, 2014 is Memorial Day.  There were a Grand Total 2,717,991 deaths from 1775–present.  Read more

The other day I was having coffee at Starbucks with a pigeon of mine (AA sponsee) and he told me that he had Hepatitis C.  Immediately, I thought about my experience with STDs.  It turned out that he contracted the disease due to drinking not sex.  He was a chronic Alcoholic that has been coming to AA much longer than I (since 80’s).

I felt so sad for him and so grateful for myself.  There but for the grace of God go I.  In fact, moments before he disclosed this to me, we were hanging out in the parking lot after the Captains Table meeting.  He said, “things had gotten so bad that he was sleeping in his car”.  So, I suggested meeting around the corner at Starbucks and bought him a cup of coffee.

Sexually transmitted diseases (STD), also referred to as sexually transmitted infections (STI) and venereal diseases (VD), are illnesses that have a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, anal sex and oral sex. Some STIs can also be contracted by using IV drug needles after their use by an infected person, as well as through any incident involving the contact of a wound with contaminated blood or through childbirth or breastfeeding.

When I lived at the beach in Ocean City, MD I contracted crabs from a woman who was dirty, yet my disease of sex addiction was so strong I did not care.  I later found out from my father that you could eliminate those little critters crawling around using Bengay cream.  Oooch.  It hurt, but it cleared it right up.  Thanks Dad.

Sexually transmitted infections have been well known for hundreds of years, and venereology is the branch of medicine that studies these diseases. While in the past, these illnesses have mostly been referred to as STDs or VD, in recent years the term sexually transmitted infections (STIs) has been preferred, as it has a broader range of meaning; a person may be infected, and may potentially infect others, without having a disease.

Towards the end of my alcoholic history, I remember going to the clinic to get a blood test about every couple weeks.  I also remember the doctor telling me, “you just had the test done less than 3 months ago and there is no point getting tested again”.  In other words, I was so petrified that I caught HIV, that I wanted to make sure.  Fortunately, I always tested “Negative”.  Thank God.

There are 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections every year in the United States, and, in 2005, the World Health Organization estimated that 448 million people aged 15–49 were being infected a year with curable STIs (such as syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia).  Read more

In the third edition of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book (since 1976), Paul O. writes the following:

“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” He forgot to mention that I was the chief critic. I was always able to see the flaw in every person, every situation. And I was always glad to point it out, because I knew you wanted perfection, just as I did. A.A. and acceptance have taught me that there is a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us; that we are all children of God and we each have a right to be here. When I complain about me or about you, I am complaining about God’s handiwork. I am saying that I know better than God.

For years I was sure the worst thing that could happen to a nice guy like me would be that I would turn out to be an alcoholic. Today I find it’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. This proves I don’t know what’s good for me. And if I don’t know what’s good for me, then I don’t know what’s good or bad for you or for anyone. So I’m better off if I don’t give advice, don’t figure I know what’s best, and just accept life on life’s terms, as it is today – especially my own life, as it actually is. Before A.A. I judged myself by my intentions, while the world was judging me by my actions.

Acceptance has been the answer to my marital problems. It’s as though A.A. had given me a new pair of glasses. Max and I have been married now for thirty-five years. Prior to our marriage, when she was a shy, scrawny adolescent, I was able to see things in her that others couldn’t necessarily see – things like beauty, charm, gaiety, a gift for being easy to talk to, a sense of humor, and many other fine qualities. It was as if I had, rather than a Midas touch which turned everything to gold, a magnifying mind that magnified whatever it focused on. Over the years as I thought about Max , her good qualities grew and grew, and we married, and all these qualities became more and more apparent to me, and we were happier and happier.

But then as I drank more and more, the alcohol seemed to affect my vision: Instead of continuing to see what was good about my wife, I began to see her defects. And the more I focused my mind on her defects, the more they grew and multiplied. Every defect I pointed out to her became greater and greater. Each time I told her she was a nothing, she receded a little more into nowhere. The more I drank, the more she wilted.

Then, one day in A.A., I was told that I had the lenses in my glasses backwards; “the courage to change” in the Serenity Prayer meant not that I should change my marriage, but rather that I should change myself and learn to accept my spouse as she was. A.A. has given me a new pair of glasses. I can again focus on my wife’s good qualities and watch them grow and grow and grow.

I can do the same thing with an A.A. meeting. The more I focus my mind on its defects -late start, long drunkalogs, cigarette smoke – the worse the meeting becomes. But when I try to see what I can add to the meeting, rather than what I can get out of it, and when I focus my mind on what’s good about it, rather than what’s wrong with it, the meeting keeps getting better and better. When I focus on what’s good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on what’s bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer, the answer increases.

Today Max and I try to communicate what we feel rather than what we think. We used to argue about our differing ideas, but we can’t argue about our feelings. I can tell her she ought not to think a certain way, but I certainly can’t take away her right to feel however she does feel. When we deal in feelings, we tend to come to know ourselves and each other much better.

(This famous personal story formerly page 449 in the Big Book moved to PART II – They Stopped in Time, now appearing on page 417. Read more)