Thank You, Dancing Man!

With summer coming to an end, the traffic is building and it is becoming more apparent how significant the loss of the I-35W bridge will be for commuting. My commute time has doubled this week as more people return from vacations. Next week will likely be worse.

But in the midst of stop-and-go traffic this morning there was dancing man.

As I sat in my car, cursing under my breath and waiting for cars to move, I looked over in the next lane and there he was. A younger man with glasses, driving a small, gray sedan.

And the man was jamming!
He was rocking out!
Swinging to the tunes!
Getting into his groove!
Oblivious to the jammed up world around him!

And then something strange happened:

I smiled!

Thank you, Dancing Man!

Why the Turtle?

It sometimes comes as a shock to realize that other people have actually read your page. Such a shock was visited upon the addict this week when he changed his avatar to a turtle.

The overwhelming response from D-Monk's underwhelmed readers:

"Why the turtle?"




The turtle has become a symbol of recovery for the addict. This is due to one of the addict's most over-used and unhealthy coping tools -- isolation.

Keep in mind that this addict, like other addicts, labors under a false view of the world. The cycle of addiction is fed by the following beliefs:

1. I am a bad and worthless person.
2. Nobody who knows the truth about me can love me.
3. Nobody will care for me.
4. I must care for myself.

Upon reaching step 4, the addict usually takes care of his needs (stress, guilt, anxiety) by acting out through his addiction. The consequences of acting out are that the addict feels shame.

Hence, the cycle begins again:

1. I am a bad and worthless person ....

Acting out is one response to this terrible set of false beliefs. Another response (and one that can be combined with acting out) is to isolate. The addict uses isolation all the time.




The addict's tendancy to isolation has been described by some who care for him as "turtling" (i.e., when faced with adversity, sadness, emotional contact, etc., the addict will withdraw).
Rather than argue, this addict goes into his shell.
Rather than solve a problem, this addict retreats from the world.

In short,
when the going gets tough,
the addict "turtles."

So given that the addict has a natural tendancy to act like a turtle, he has taken an increased interest in the turtle as a symbol in recovery. If the addict emulates a turtle in unhealthy ways, what are some healthy ways of being turtle-like?




Already people are sharing positive turtle traits with the addict!

Turtles are deliberate. Slow and steady. The turtle is a symbol of earth. Turtles are rooted to the earth and connected to earth power.

The turtle is a unique creature. Turtles live on water and on land. Turtles are slow, but revered.

And so the addict (at least for now) is choosing to embrace the turtle as a recovery totem. I will do my best to learn the positive ways of the turtle and to forgo the act of isolation which has dominated my turtle past.



BE THE TURTLE!

Fear of Fear of Economic Insecurity

"If we are painstaking about this phase of our development ... [f]ear of people and economic insecurity will leave us."

--Big Book of AA


"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change ..."

--Serenity Prayer


"The complete life is the life of a child. When I am consciously conscious, there is something wrong. It is the sick man who knows what health is."

--Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (August 20)


Fear of economic insecurity has visited the Addict once again. So long as the addict lives, economic insecurity will probably be sitting on his doorstep. Such is the life of the addict.

Economic insecurity visited this week as the addict and his beloved closed on a refinancing of their home. The need for refinancing was created by the last time the home was refinanced. The addict and his beloved went with an adjustable rate mortgage and now the rates are hiking.

But that's not the worst, this loan had an optional payment feature which opened up the possibility (and in this case the reality) of negative amortization. The addict had never heard the term "negative amortization" until he and his beloved realized that they were in trouble. To make a long story short, negative amortization means that the loan balance on our home was actually increasing! Trouble!

So refinance we did. The addict and his beloved have a new fixed rate mortgage. But there was a cost ... our monthly payments have increased. And the addict just had to replace his car less than a month ago generating another new monthly payment. As the addict and his beloved signed documents for the closing, it was hard to see how we were going to be able to make ends meet.


Fear of economic insecurity ...

The Beloved cried that morning. The stress of it all bursting through the cracks.

How is the addict supposed to respond?


Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change ...

There is much here that the addict cannot change. Some of it the addict honestly feels he can accept:

+ tight financial circumstances;
+ cutting costs;
+ embarrassment of having entered into a transaction he didn't fully understand.

There is one thing, however, that in all honesty the addict doesn't know how to accept: the stress, sadness, and anxiety suffered by his Beloved.

It is one thing to accept the consequences of troubled times for oneself, it wholly another thing to watch how those troubles impact someone you love.

So what does the addict fear? Maybe the addict doesn't fear economic insecurity after all. Maybe the addict fears the pain life throws at his loved ones. Maybe the addict really fears his inability to protect loved ones from pain.

Aren't men supposed to be protectors? Maybe a recovering addict can accept trouble, pain, hardship, and poverty, but still be immensely affected by how such circumstances impact his family.

The addict cannot fulfill the role of protector. Perhaps this means that the addict is a bad and worthless individual. Perhaps the addict won't be loved by anyone who figures out that he is a bad protector and thus a bad and worthelss individual. Perhaps the addict is unlovable -- at least to anyone who learns the truth about the addict.

Maybe the addict better hide this secret. Maybe the addict should withdraw and "turtle." Maybe the addict needs to care for himself ...

And so the vicious circle begins. Maybe it is not fear of economic insecurity, but the addict's finances have certainly got him into a state of fear.

Recovering from a Super-Circus Weekend

Returning to work this week was a chance for recovery. The Addict needed some respite after surviving a "Super-Circus Weekend."

The Addict lives in a blended family. This is a second marriage for both the Addict and his Beloved. Our new family includes three children from the Beloved's first marriage (Y-Girl, X-Boy, and Z-Girl), two children from the Addict's first marriage (Ball-Boy and Snibbet-Girl), and one child from the new marriage (The Chatty Chatty Princess).

Four of the children reside with us on a daily basis (Y, X, Z, and the CCP). Ball and Snibbets join us every other weekend. We affectionately refer to these weekends as "Circus Weekends."

This past weekend was a Circus Weekend on steroids -- a Super-Circus Weekend.

It all started with a Father-Daughter event for the Addict and Snibbet-Girl. This was held in the city where Snibbet-Girl lives, about a 90-minute drive from the Addict's house. The event was wonderfully fun! But it was also just the beginning.

X-Boy's baseball team had a tournament for the weekend. His team played one game Friday night, four games on Saturday, and a game on Sunday morning. Thus the Beloved was gone for most of the weekend to attend X-Boy's games.

Meanwhile, Y-Girl was having a combined sweet-16 birthday party with a friend. This meant that roughly sixteen wild teenagers were over at the Addict's house on Friday evening, with seven teenage girls spending the night. Chaos in the hallways!

To avoid any unwanted trouble, X-Boy stayed at his Dad's house Friday night and Ball-Boy, Snibbet-Girl, the Chatty Chatty Princess, and the Addict fled to the confines of the Addict's parents' home. Despite this seemingly wise plan, the Addict got no sleep that night.

Y-Girl was not the only one celebrating a birthday over the weekend. The Addict's sister, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, was also celebrating a birthday. This involved a party with friends on Saturday evening and a family party on Sunday.

Whew!

By the time the whole Super-Circus Weekend was over, the Addict was exhausted!

Time to go to work and get some rest!

Happiness, Too!

Life does go on in Minneapolis and, beyond the sadness, there is happiness, too.

Today the Chatty Chatty Princess had a bicycle parade at pre-school. She chose to decorate her bike with the most fashionable pinks she could find. And she threw on a pink flamingo for good measure.

Go, Chatty Chatty Princess, Go!

Sadness in Minneapolis

I-35W Bridge Collapse (StarTribune.com)

I am sure that everybody has already heard about the collapse of the I-35W bridge in downtown Minneapolis.
There are no words for this kind of a tragedy.
No words ... just sadness.

The mood is somber today. People aren't sure how to respond. Are we allowed to complain about commute times after such an event? My commute time has doubled and the longer commute will probably last two years (maybe longer). But this pales next to the tragedy of lost loved ones.

No words ... just sadness.



I-35W Bridge Before Collapse (WCCO.com)



I-35W Bridge After Collapse (WCCO.com)

No words ... just sadness.