After class this morning I was able to devote a quality effort on the final project of the semester.  I am doing a presentation on life's greatest lesson from the book we read "Tuesday's with Morrie."  I am focusing on the problem of death.

I was a little stressed out about this after class today as several people did their presentations and focused on their passions.  They also all had visual presentations except for one and this compelled me to do one even though I wasn't planning on it.  I had a moment of panic in class that my presentation was due today, but it wasn't.  The teacher pulled my leg and called my name to scare me.

This evening I got to go to a meeting.  We talked about the futility of schemes to shield the alcoholic.  It was a controversial topic split down the middle.  Some members put a heavy emphasis on avoiding people, places, and things.  Others, myself included, place all the emphasis on a psychic change and allow good decisions to follow.

Thanks be to God.

This Monday morning I did a presentation in my Social Services class.  I was grateful to have the faculties to get through it with ease.  I was grateful that I had it done well ahead of time and didn't have to be stressed over it.

In the afternoon I was able to get home and focus on finishing my paper for Personal Adjustment class.

I spent some time with the kids outside.

Thanks be to God.

This morning I felt very cognizant when I woke up.  It was the second good day in a row.  During my morning routine, I thought of a better approach to my school project that is in process.  I wished that I could capitalize on this inspiration but I had to feed the kids.  During breakfast I watched a program in which Fr. Barron spoke of the nature of God as being.  That this is what Aquinas said.  That God is not a genus but that God is being.  

We made it to mass on time.  It was the first week of Advent and I was deeply moved by our worship and music. Our priest gave a great sermon on the business of our buzy-ness.  He spoke of the need to prioritize the spiritual life.  After receiving communion, as I sat with my eyes closed in meditation, the point of light that I sometimes see out of the corner of my eye appeared more distinctly than ever before and directly in the center of my line of sight.  It also lingered more than ever before.  My daughter interrupted me but I was not aroused.  As we exited our pew I got separated from my wife and children and took up the end of the line.  I was feeling a little worn at this point from the effort that it takes to manage the children.  An elderly lady walked alone ahead of me and I felt her loneliness.  I thought of what it must be like to perhaps be separated from your loved ones.  For the days of buzy-ness and joy filled family life to be long gone.  The atmosphere turned eerily distant and echoing to me at that moment.  I suddenly felt a calling from behind in the sanctuary, from behind the altar.  I felt longing and sadness.  I felt love and passion wash over me.

I tried to work on my book report after dinner but my parents showed up to visit with my niece.  I thought it was odd and I couldn't help but resent it a little as I was feeling the pressure to work on my project due Tuesday.  We had a difficult discussion about my sister-in-law who called and griped at my parents this morning about her perceived lack of support from them for her son.  The entire time I had this feeling that I had important things to talk to my parents about but I couldn't find them.  When my parents left the house my dad started talking to me about how hard my niece took parting with her mother today and about other things.  I was grieved that he waited until then to try and talk as my mother and niece were waiting in the car and I really couldn't engage in the discussion that this merited.

I tried to work again this afternoon but was continually interrupted by the needs of my children.  I had a hard time keeping them active outside and off the video games.  I had to take a different tact with my son about baseball practice.  I had to inform him that it is not a choice for him to participate, that it is a requirement that he participate in a team sport and that we have decided that baseball is the best choice.  This is part of his personal character and health development.

Thanks be to God for this day.

This Saturday morning I woke up a little earlier and considerably more alert than recent days.  It was one of those times when I feel inspired during prayer and find greater understanding and make additions.

I got to work a little on my school project due Tuesday.  But, my wife left me with the kids and this kept me busy.

In the evening I got to go to a meeting.  I felt stressed out from isolation with the kids all day and questioned whether or not to go.  But, I just had to get out of the house and interact with adults.  At the meeting I felt spiritually flat but felt better as I talked to people.  I also sensed that they were not completely inspired.  I was asked to present a topic.  I talked about my objections to relinquishing my will and read from the Twelve and Twelve. I was a little disappointed to drift into things I have already said at meetings recently.

During meditation my ears began to ring and the radiance of light that I sometimes focus on appeared in a very elaborate and distinct way.

Thanks be to God.

This morning I found myself in a strange place having feelings of inadequacy.  I was thinking of my studies, of my choice of profession, about starting at the bottom perhaps or not getting enough education?   I was also thinking and debating in mind with people who have different views than me.  I think that I was placing myself too far into the realm of education alone as the sole source of wisdom.

I also thought some about identity.  About how how recovery from addiction became a large part of my identity when I got sober.  This didn't happen intentionally and I never thought about it this way, but it took up so much of my thought life and time that it sort of happened automatically.  I think that a large part of the reason for this is also the void that was left in the wake of the change of lifestyle that was a fundamental part of my previous identity.  However, rather than recovery being the central focus, perhaps spiritual awareness and formation are more apropos.

I also found myself feeling some deprivation of spiritual vitality this morning.  At one point my when my wife was gone and my sons kept interrupting me I got very angry.  I was trying to get started on my paper and thinking about my presentation for school and my feelings cascaded into a rage and blamestorm.  Fortunately I had the fortitude to resist them and to pray for serenity.

This evening I got to go to a meeting.  The topic was about time spent with family during the holidays and how we deal with resentment. Afterward I got to talk to a friend about the married life and dealing with my own resentments instead of trying to change others.

Thanks be to God.

Last night I was very late getting to bed.  This morning I was late waking up and didn't quite make it through all of my prayers.  It might seem silly to write about this but I am doing so because I wish to maintain my faith in the importance of prayer and I wish to stick to the principle that routine sleep patterns are vital to peace of mind and good function.

Perhaps as a consequence of not getting enough sleep I forgot my backpack.  So I bought a spiral notebook and some pens at the campus store which is way overpriced.  Then I kept feeling remorseful about spending six dollars and couldn't let it go.  Perhaps that was a consequence of incomplete prayer.  Anyway, forgetting was completely inconsequential as we just had presentations today and I didn't need to take notes.

This afternoon I went and got a haircut.  It was the second in as many weeks.  I asked the stylist about her Thanksgiving plans and was taken aback by her response that she is not looking forward to the holiday.  She went on to describe her attitude as humbug about it.  She griped about her financial situation, and ranted about her husband's lack of employment and bad purchases.  She went on to talk about all the was in which the holiday is just a big annoyance and her dissatisfaction with her lot in life.  This attitude was at once startling and at the same time very familiar.  I was very grateful to that the holiday is truly meaningful for me now.  I told her about our families plans and how I have been teaching my kids the true meaning of Thanksgiving and how to appreciate all the graces in life that we might take for granted.

Again I felt overly remorseful about spending money (for the haircut).

In Human Growth and Development class we had a lecture about the late adulthood stage of life.  One of the issues that was reviewed was the importance of good sleep.

This evening I got to go to a 12 step meeting.  We talked about the idea that we do not recover so long as we place dependence upon people over dependence upon God.  I got to talk to an old friend.

Thanks be to God.

This morning I got off to a good start for the second day in a row.  While I was getting the kids off to school I had some random thoughts about a better way to tell my story but I couldn't remember them later.  This was deeply disappointing.  I have to make a better effort to stop and jot notes somehow when this occurs.  In my first class I took a test and did very well.  Afterward I talked to a friend about his financial situation which is similar to mine.  I felt a lot better about things.

At noon I went to my youngest daughter's Thanksgiving presentation at our church.  I was glad to be able to participate in this sort of event to become more and more active there.

The rest of the day my wife was working and I had kid duty.  I got to do a landscaping task I have wanted to do.  I got to do some pre-cleaning for Thanksgiving.  I got to watch a show about the holiday with my kids.

Later I got to watch a very good episode of the program "Intervention."

Thanks be to God for this day.

This morning was another slow, groggy start.  I never made it completely through my prayers before the kids were clamoring for food.  I got out of bed late and then after breakfast and cleanup went back to pray and fell asleep again.  During prayer I thought about a three part overview of prayer for personal formation, prayer for God's will to be done in the world, and prayer of intercession for others.

For some reason the past couple of days I have felt some loss of faith.  Not in mind but in feeling.

In the afternoon I took the boys to the park for some baseball practice.  We got in some good work and had a great time together.

This evening I got to go to a meeting.  We talked about the problem people have admitting they are alcoholic.  I heard bad news afterward, a friend's son is on life support and the parents have been summoned to attend to his passing.  It appears that he is a victim of drug abuse.

When I got home I felt my spiritual connection renewed and I got caught up on journaling.  I got good news that my youngest daughter went to the potty on her own twice.  I thought about the role my friend who is losing his son has played in helping me keep my children.  I feel a great sense of sorrow for him and his loss.  Tonight I offer up my prayers for him and his family.

Thanks be to God for this day, and for my children.

This Friday I got off to a mentally slow start and never really felt like I got going.  Then I tried to study but had to attend to my youngest daughter repeatedly.  She just wanted someone to play with her.  I set her up to play several times but each time she would come sit in front of me and plead for me to play with her.  I finally gave in when she started falling asleep in her chair.

I never did feel right all day and I told myself that it was the moon cycle.

My wife was gone all day working into the evening so I had kid duty all day.  In the afternoon I took my middle son to therapy and took the other kids to the park.  I ran into my friend's wife and two sons and the oldest joined my oldest and i in throwing the football.

In the evening my serenity ran low and I was disappointed that I didn't get to go to a meeting.  But I enjoyed my time with the kids and we watched some cool cartoons.  At the end of the day I had a nostalgic feeling and the Flock of Seagulls song "Space Age Love Song" running through my head.

Thanks be to God for this day.

This Thursday in personal adjustment class a student gave a report on a book about a guy who lived in Apartheid South Africa.  He talked about how the book gave a good description of the step by step process in which that system evolved.  I asked him if the book gave a better understanding of how these sorts of atrocious policies evolve and how good people think they are doing good things.  A classmate asked for explanation and I used the example of how the Germans were lured into Nazism little by little, justified by the perceived injustice and suffering of their people.  It didn't seem to be understood and my had to interject and try to explain.  It seemed to validate the reason that I brought this up.  Because I think that people do not try hard enough to understand why people do bad things, they prefer to just think these people are bad.  It is because of this that people and social groups continue to commit injustices.

After the book report our professor then talked about forgiveness.  She first talked about the premise that knowing how to forgive is essential.  That holding on to resentment is like taking a drink of poison and expecting the other person to die.  She went on to say that forgiving is not just to forget.  That one cannot forgive by the will to do so alone.  This resonated strongly with me.   Then she talked about a book called Toxic Parents by Susan Forward.  In it the author discusses the struggles of children with highly abusive parents.  The author expressed some attitudes about forgiveness that I found questionable.  They are as follows from my notes:
People who have been severely hurt by there parents don't have to accept what their parents did to them.
They don't have to understand what they did.
They don't have to be okay with it.
They don't have to forgive like God.
They have to turn loose of the power that person has on them.  <---I agree with this
They shouldn't let them off the hook.

It's possible that I misunderstood part of this.  But in further discussion I realized that I was understanding the dimensions of forgiveness that she was describing.  It seemed very difficult to sustain.  She went on to tell the story of the book the Sun Flower in which Simon Wiesenthal tells the story of the Nazi that admitted his misdeeds to him on his death bed and asked for forgiveness, which he did not give.  She asked the class for their thoughts and the whys.

I had to say that I would have forgiven him, but this was given my understanding of forgiveness now.  I said that I would have thought of all the times in the past that people of my culture have committed atrocities to other peoples.  However, I certainly understood Mr. Wiesenthal's point of view since I would have treated it similar to him in the past.

Here are my thoughts on forgiveness:
I must forgive in order to be free of resentment, if not it will rot my soul.
I can forgive the person if I separate them from the offense.
In order to do this I must treat the offender as a sick person, a good person who went wrong somewhere.
It is imperative that I understand my nature, human nature, that I am just as capable of having gone this astray but for good fortune.
This in no way diminishes the gravity of the offense.
I don't have to like the person, or validate the behavior, just stop hating and blaming.
I must recognize that wrong paradigms, bad environment, wrong attitudes are the source of evil.
I must forgive in order to stop the cycle of justifiable resentment.
This sort of radical forgiveness might not be possible without faith in a Higher Power (at least its not for me).

I looked up the book after class and found it disturbing.  The coauthor's bio showed his picture and which he was between two candles and had prosthetic horns.  I found this eerie.

In the evening I attended initiation into a fraternal order of men at my church.  I am excited to become more involved for my family but I was troubled by the spooky rituals.

Thanks be to God for this day.

This morning I got off to slow start.  I took the kids to school and then went to class.  I finished the book for my end of semester report while waiting for class to start.  In class we talked about behavioral approaches to therapy.  I had some stimulating thoughts about sensitization, stimulus, reinforcement, and cause and effect in relation to relationship between the biological mechanisms and the reaction logic involved in conditioned responses.

After lunch I passed out for an hour and never really felt productive again.  I tried to get started on some school work but I never could get it together.

After I brought the kids home I got into a pretty serious confrontation with my son over following my directions.  He didn't want to do his baseball hitting practice.  I had to be steadfast while trying to be flexible and reasonable with him.  He ended up doing sentences for showing a ad attitude.  But eventually he did do his assigned tasks and actually had fun.  I joined him for the latter half.

I got to talk on the phone to a friend who is new in recovery.

I also did some practice with the two younger ones.  They are showing some good progress.  A friend of my son came to visit from 3 blocks away and when it was time for him to go home we rode bikes to escort him there.

Thanks be to God for this day.

This morning I had some thoughts about humility again. This might have been something I thought about some a little while back. It is the precise nature of humility. What is the greater dimension of the virtue? Perhaps rather than just being a feeling of modesty it is the true and more accurate awareness of the limits of one's abilities and the recognition that the seemingly less virtuous or less proficient person is actually just a less fortunate person. The person is not lesser in natural aptitude, rather that they are a product of less fortunate circumstances or environment than me.  There, but for the grace of God, go I.  Perhaps the significance of this is that one can never really see the truth if they are not in a state humble awareness, and one can never truly forgive another without this.

In Personal Adjustment class today our professor had us read stories about people who overcame great adversity and tragedy in life and went on to great success and self actualization by using their experience to inspire and help others.

At noon I met my wife at my son's school and we ate lunch with him for his birthday.

This evening I got to go to a 12 step meeting.  A guy from our group brought his brother who has double digit sobriety.  He brought our topic, "have you a sufficient substitute?", a line from page from page 152 in the Big Book.

This got me thinking about the parallels between my new life and the old.  Both involved going to a place to share an experience of conviviality, companionship, and colorful imagination.  Both also involved a critical element on which this experience centered, in the bar it was the drinking experience, in the AA club it is the spiritual experience.

I also thought about what it was like to hang out at the bar without the booze.  Sometimes I would go there perhaps sick, or perhaps needing a sober day, with the idea that I would just drink coffee or a coke and play pool or something.  Or, I would run out of money, or get cut off, and still hang out.  It was stupid, boring, and glum.  It was a whole lot of boring people hanging out at the same place for hours on end, playing the same old games and the same old music and talking about nothing.

Likewise when I was in AA without a spiritual experience.  Before I committed to the spiritual life or when my spiritual vitality ran dry due to lack of action.   It would be interesting for a while but it would start to grate on me.  The same people would say the same things every week, they were always grateful and everything was a freakin' miracle.  It was stupid boring and glum, it was like the bar without the booze.

I guess you could say that the booze put the spirit in the bar.  The spirits, the booze, was the power that made it all wonderful.  It fired the imagination, livened the mood, and brought together people who normally would not mix.  But it came with a price, It was an addicted power that robbed me of the most sacred value of all, that of free will, of the power of choice.  In the end, as I became more and more isolated, it robbed me of the very experience that drew me in.

In the 12 Step fellowships the experience is spirited by a Higher Power.  But the experience is counter to the former.  It is a progressively greater, it increases one's imagination, joys and rewards, and relations to others.  It begins by willingly giving oneself and progresses into increasingly greater freedom.  Most of all the spiritual experience gives one back the ability to function, succeed, and gives meaning and purpose to life.

I had another slow start this morning but not as bad as yesterday.  I never really got a chance to pray effectively until I was in mass.

Our readings today were about justice in eternity for evildoers.  On the surface these seemed liked difficult beliefs to deal with but with a little thought there were two simple lessons that could be ascertained from them:  1. Everything on this earth is impermanent, so don't place your faith there, and 2. One can transcend the injustice on this earth through faith in eternal justice from God.  

This afternoon my son and I invented 2 fun baseball games in the backyard to make practicing fun.

I had feelings of aimlessness today but trudged through them just doing the next right thing.

This evening I got to go to a meeting. We read pages that had a couple of major ideas that I found to be great sources of inspiration.  I thought about commenting in the meeting but chose to remain silent to practice humility. Several group members commented on the same thoughts that I had.  They brought up some excellent perspectives that I agreed and disagreed with: 

"Burn the idea into the consciousness of every man that he can get well regardless of anyone."  I thought about how this was a revolutionary idea to me for it's emphasis on change from within, despite one's circumstances and domestic difficulties.

"Both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress."  Someone pointed out that this is an imperative that we must be willing to do intense sponsorship work to stay sober.  They pointed out that it is in the chapter "Working with Others" therefore it is so.  But in looking at the context, I took it as an imperative to uphold the standards of spiritual progress and  guard against become entangled in the new man's domestic affairs.  

"In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. "  This was the one that really caught my attention. I remembered how this really struck me when I was trying to find my belief.  It occurred to me that it was an incredibly bold statement for a fledgling organization trying to build credibility.  The idea that they would not use techniques of aversion but rather conversion was either proof of a miracle or based on experience.  Given that they all had under 5 years of sobriety, clearly it was the former.

Thanks be to God.

I felt out of it all morning.  I guess my body is still fighting off this virus.  I wondered if my joy/reward system is still screwed up.  I wondered if motivational fatigue is a form of depression.  Not the sort of depression where one feels sorry for themselves, but rather the sort of depression where one's motivational drive is low.  I thought about how I would probably do better at getting going if it were not for the immediate clamor of children in the house.  There were two kids here that spent the night in addition to my four.  Then two more came over and the party from last night continued.

I tried my best to recover at mid day.  I wanted to study but never was able to find the solitude.  My wife went to work at 3 so my service load doubled at that point.

At some point in the evening I was cooking dinner and I suddenly smelled something that made me think of cocaine.  I felt a moment of desire in my mind.  It passed immediately and I just found it remarkable that this could still happen, and so randomly.  I wasn't fantasizing about any part of the old life, I wasn't stewing in anger, I haven't had any conscious desire for anything remotely close to partying in years now.  Other than the occasional dream in deep sleep, the old life is like an ancient myth that doesn't even seem relevant anymore.

I was too busy to stop and think about it at the time but later I wondered again about this.  I also thought about how much time I still spend thinking about my addiction.  I thought back to the class about grieving and loss.  I thought about how drinking and using and my sex attitudes were part of my identity.  I was really attached to the part of me that savored imported beers, high quality blow, and lustful pursuits.

It is easy to understand how this left a void within me when I was in early sobriety.  When my sense of identity was still edgy, just without the intoxicants.  But what I find astonishing is how it still exists now after all these years, now that my concerns are so different.  Now my thoughts and identity are dominated my family, my studies, and religion.  You would think that there would be nothing in my thought life that were attached to the old passions.

Thanks be to God for this day.

This morning I recalled looking for an easy reference to the Erikson's stages yesterday in class and decided to find one for a single page. I had to draft it myself and fell into a flow with it and couldn't stop until I was done.

This and a review of the stages of grief lead me to the stages of change model.

Stages of Change
1. Precontemplation - Has no intention to take action within the next 6 months
2. Contemplation - Intends to take action within the next 6 months.
3. Preparation - Intends to take action within the next 30 days and has taken some behavioral steps in this direction.
4. Action - Has changed overt behavior for less than 6 months
5. Maintenance - Has changed overt behavior for more than 6 months.
6. Termination - Overt behavior will never return, and there is complete confidence that you can cope without tear of relapse.

Today I learned of the condition of sensitization which is the opposite of tolerance. I realized that I experienced this.

I also came across the I-Change model of change:
1. Awareness - the result of accurate knowledge and risk perceptions of the person about his own behavior
2. Motivation - a person's attitude (the results of perceived advantages and disadvantages of the behavior), social influence beliefs (norms of others, behavior of others, and support of others) and self-efficacy expectations (the perceived ability to perform a particular health behavior).
Action - Self-efficacy, action planning and goal setting. Performing the new behavior, Coping or maintenance Development of skills required for the new health behavior.

This morning during prayer my thoughts drifted into the idea of critical thinking. I thought of it as a filter. There have been times when this concept has come up in conversation and the terms critical thinking have not seemed precisely right, it seems too aggressive. Maybe critical filter, or rational filter, or filter of reason is more appropriate.

In Personal Adjustment class our professor talked more about death and dying. It was very helpful in understanding how to be attentive to the needs of those coping with death or life crisis. I thought of my friend with a serious illness, and of my sister with cancer.

This got me thinking about Kubler-Ross's 5 stages of death. I thought about how this could be helpful for both those near, and the person themselves, in understanding the psychological states in the process of dying. I thought about how this could facilitate the state of acceptance and help improve the time that the person has and perhaps in their legacy.

My biggest interest in these stages however, is in relation to all the other losses and changes in life. We talked about the losses in our lives and drew pictures of them. I remembered how i went to the Kubler-Ross website and looked into her books and found out that she and others apply the stages in this way.

I think this will be extremely helpful in helping those struggling to admit their addiction to understand where they are and move towards action.

During Human Growth and Development class a discussion ensued about the condition of learned helplessness. There was a guy in class who couldn't get how people could fall into this behavior. I thought of all the book reports in Personal Adjustment class that covered the deeply traumatic lives of people that explain this problem. I realized how much I have befitted from these accounts, however difficult they were to sit through.

This morning I remembered that a friend called last night and asked to borrow a few bucks. I didn't meet his request last night, partly out of caution with people in recovery, but mainly because I was putting my kids to bed. I felt a little guilty for not being more willing to be helpful but looking back it was probably the right choice.

This morning the guy followed up with me and met me at school. I wished that I could help him more as he is genuinely trying to get on his feet. Interestingly enough, the topic in my Social Services class was on the good and bad of being a SS worker. Our professor talked at length about detaching and not trying to help too much or getting personally involved or too invested in outcomes.

Today I thought some more about existential psychotherapy, I read on a website of the givens of existence that listed them in additional terms and included a fifth:
1. Freedom, Responsibility, and Agency
2. Death, Human Limitation, and Finiteness
3. Isolation and Connectedness
4. Meaning vs. Meaninglessness
5. Emotions, Experience, and Embodiment
I also thought about my own theory of the structures of the psyche. To the idea of the being as composed of 3 parts:
1. Intellect: the mind, thinking, logic, reason
2. Emotion: the heart, instinct, motivational force,
3. Intuition: the soul, gut feeling, choice, judgement
I thought of how they have distinct but not separate functions. How they overlap in a sort of Venn diagram.

This afternoon I had to write up my mom's life story. I felt a great deal of honor and gratitude to have her as my mother.

Once again I have a cold. This morning 10 minutes before rising I felt so bad that I didn't think I was going anywhere today. I had to abbreviate my prayers today. I am grateful to have this worked out and that I did get to make take my youngest daughter to school and make it to my first class.

We got to talk about isolation, loneliness, and solitude today. The professor introduced us to the existential approach to psychotherapy. This approach resonated greatly with me. I was immediately taken with the idea of a common set of givens of existence: Freedom, Death, Isolation and Meaning.

After class I fell into a great deal of discomfort and felt distressed. I stopped at the bookstore but was in so much physical discomfort that I had to leave. When I got home I thought that there was no way that I was going anywhere else the rest of the day. I ate some chicken soup and drank a 7 up, took some medicine and went to bed.

Amazingly I felt better later and made it to my afternoon class.

I got to go to a meeting tonight. I got to connect with some friends that I have been missing lately. Our topic was about spiritual fitness and the psychic change that comes with this work. I thought about when it happened for me. About how I had gotten sober many times and struggled through months of fighting off the obsession to drink and/or use every day like clockwork. This was a monkey on my back that I took as a given. But when I began the 12 step process and had begun the personal inventory, at about 35 days clean, I noticed that the obsession had not come that day. Then a little while later I couldn’t remember the last day that this happened. I also had begun to experience an entire paradigm shift in my life struggles. This was astonishing to me because I had never experienced this type of sobriety.

Thanks be to God.

This Monday all my kids were home due to a school holiday. After my morning class I packed a lunch loaded the girls in the bicycle stroller and the boys rode on their bikes to the park. We had a great time, the weather was nice, the boys and i threw the football.

In the evening my mom came over and she helped me with my end of semester project by telling me her life story. I felt like I got to know her better through the perceptions and feelings that she shared with me about the events in her life. We went on for a long time and she had much more to share but I had to cut it short. I would like to do this again and hear more.

Thanks be to God.

This morning in meditation I thought of the idea of "Physician Heal Thyself" as the focus of my end of semester report. I started out my prayers in a state of worry and fear about school but found a good sense of focus and received a few more increments of clarification.

I also thought about the idea that my prayers (and those of the newly sober) should include a petition for removal of craving and obsession.

Today I was grateful for the extra hour of sleep.

Before mass I got to listen to watch the litany of the Sacred Heart (on TV) and listen to the scripture readings and to a sermon online. I am grateful for this also because we had no choir at mass and we had a fundraising presentation in lieu of the homily. The priest presented a great concept in regard to the afterlife, that of the subrational the suprarational argument. I thought the subject of belief in the afterlife was very synchronous with the book I am reading about the man dealing with his impending death.

also: Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to the absurd") is a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence.

I had to exercise a good deal of patience with my kids before church. My wife and I made a mistake by taking my youngest daughter who had a fever last night. She didn't feel well and cried a lot in the children's liturgy with my wife. When the kids were released I took my daughter out of the sanctuary and we sat in the van until mass was over. When my wife came out I asked her how things went and she said terrible. She went on to characterize the children as behaving badly every mass, I had to correct her in their defense and point out that the kids had been pretty good especially when they go with me alone. She went on to vilify the children's behavior and I found myself pointing out her short temper and inconsistent conduct with them as the cause of her problems.

As I sat in the van before she and the older kids came out, I listened to a talk by Fr. Corapi in which he quoted the parable: "Physician heal thyself", that is that one should attend at their own defects not those of others.

I am still not sure if this was self centered, or inconsiderate, or unjustifiably aroused bitterness. Or if perhaps it was appropriate for me to assert this in an effort to help our family.

My parents came to visit today. We had a great time together, my wife ran errands with my mom and I got to spend time practicing baseball with my dad and the boys in the back yard. I also got to line up my psychology assignment with my mom.

In the evening I got to go to an admissions function with the Knights of Columbus.

This Saturday morning I find myself really having to resist the injunctions that I have decreed for myself this week:
I have not been productive enough,
Our money is going too run out,
I am going to be dropped from math,
I am going to fail,
I can't do this,
My sobriety programming is lapsing,
It's all her fault.
None of these are true, they are all based on my fear instinct and I can walk through them by trusting and relying on infinite God rather than finite self.

This morning I was beginning to get resentful when my wife didn't wake up early and I had to attend to the kids. But she did get up at a fairly reasonable time and I was able to get started on an essay for the end of the semester assignment. My real problem here (again) was my own feelings not her actions. It was the "B" in the A-B-C's of resentment that was missing, it was my B-lief about the cause, not the true cause. I also got to spend some time catching up on journaling.

I have a simmering anxiety over not being able to do my review journaling again. This is the greatest gap that I have experienced in the past 7 years. I must again look to the ends, not the means, to keep my head up, while at the same time allowing the motivation to drive me to get back on track.

After lunch my wife started yelling at me for giving the kids leftover Halloween candy. She griped at me as she was passing through the living room and I was in the kitchen. I answered her in a regular voice that I was just giving them this for dessert. She went off on a rant yelling at me that they don't need dessert after every meal, it's not a candy free-for-all, they don't just get whatever they want, and several other things. She yelled at me long on hyperbole and short on communication. As I realized that she was not open to reason or calm, I simply backed away from the argument. The last thing I heard her say was that I am always concerned about them not getting fat, the implication being that I am contradicting myself. I thought about how it is reasonable to have dessert, how I never let them overeat or encourage large proportions, how she has always had problems with serving sizes, how my concern is that they get exercise (something she knows nothing about).

Here is one of those examples of how these days she has s very short fuse and a strong resolve for her demands to be met.

Last night I woke up and my wife was holding my hand. I thought today about how we don't share affection right now. I thought about the reasons why. She has always expressed to me that the initiative lies with me, that when i don't express affection to her she feels rejected and inhibited. Sometimes she holds back because she is angry but this rarely lasts and she typically recovers from anger in a way that is completely foreign to me. I on the other hand, do not recover from angry emotions quickly and even when I forgive, I still do not feel enthusiastically affectionate for a while.

In looking at the reasons for my reservation of affection, I think it is because I am shielding myself from coercion. I feel like that she has a mountain of ambitious, intricate and high demands for every aspect of all of our lives and the minute we become affectionate then she employs this to gain what she wants. This can't be good and it wasn't always this way. It seems that she regressed about the time that she started school.

There, now that I wrote about it, I have to resist it and let it go. I mustn't carry this resentment into every new day. I need to approach the moment without the baggage of the past.

Later in the day while updating my journal for Thursday I came across the following teaching about/from the encyclical Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI:
"To the Pope as to all his predecessors, marital relations are much more than a union of two people. They constitute a union of the loving couple with a loving God, in which the two persons create a new person materially, while God completes the creation by adding the soul. For this reason, Paul VI teaches in the first sentence of Humanae Vitae that the transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator."

I no longer felt inadequate for having to work at marriage, not just be happy.
I no longer felt guilty that the main love I feel for my wife is when I see my children in her.

The past few days I've got extremely tired in the afternoon and passed out really hard. I have to admit that this is troubling me. I want to be highly disciplined and energetic. Maybe my body is fighting off a virus, the kids are all sick with one staying home for the past two days. The past 3 days I have been the one to get the kids going in the morning. Come to think of it leading up to that my wife was sick and I had to carry much more of the load than usual.

This Friday morning I had a using dream that was elaborate, recurring all night, and left me with lingering feelings, not desire, but with a vivid recollection of the circumstances, thought patterns and emotions.

The dream took me back in time to when my wife and I had no kids. In this dream she was upset over my strong desire to use over my value of her. It was one of those times back them when she was trying participate and arrange things in a futile effort to get me to love her more.

I remember the way that the drugs looked, the amount, the shape, the texture and the smell. I remember that it wasn't enough and my wife and I were both frustrated with each other.

As usual in these cases I am easily able to identify some lack of action in my spiritual program that correlates with this disturbance.

I was grateful for a renewed sense of enthusiasm and direction in my studies that I received from a presentation by a department head today.

I was grateful that I am not as sick as my son who had a high fever last night and had to stay home.

I was grateful for the program I got to watch about Pope Paul VI who was Holy Father when I was a child. I was fascinated as I new almost nothing about him, or his relationship with the world, or the papacy in general until recently.

I have a lot more to be grateful for this day, thanks be to God.

Today I looked up the greek word for sobriety in an effort to find a word for sober ideology. I found several biblical references to the verb nepho and the adjective nephalios. I thought about the term nephology but that already means the study of clouds. Perhaps it is still fitting.

This morning I got a letter that had some potentially very bad news financially. I felt my mood plummet for a few brief moments. I recognized this as just a feeling brought on by my limited scope of vision. I sought to put my trust back in the scope God's vision and my fears were relieved for the moment.

Later I reread the letter and found that the news was not nearly as bad as I thought. It didn't have the current impact that i thought, it didn't place and unreasonable demand on me for the future, and it didn't mean certain harm. At this point the relief was more lasting.

I thought back to the day before when I noticed that it had grown cloudy and cold and I recognized that this made me feel depressed. I remembered that I had a choice, and that with divine help I could restore the sunny day in my heart.

This Tuesday during the day I took a walk to the neighborhood school to vote. It was bright and sunny and crisp and cool, turning warmer on the way home. I felt good for having done my civic duty and for being a good example for my kids. I felt bad for the choice that I had to make in the ballot box. In thinking back to this, my wife and I had a great discussion about it beforehand in which she helped me tremendously in thinking through the choice of whether or not to even participate in the process.

After being at home for a little while and doing some homework, I suddenly noticed it had grown very dark. We had the lights off and windows open in the nice sunny weather. As I walked outside I noticed the temperature had dropped with the cloud cover. I realized that I was having acute feelings of depression. Not serious emotional distress but just a reaction to the environment. I chose to change this, thanks be to God.

In the evening I got to go to a meeting for the first time in a long while. It was a really good meeting with just a few people at my home group. The topic was page 24-25 from the Big Book about the insanity of the alcoholic. I thought about how I had mixed feelings about my addiction back when. About how the understanding I found in AA helped me to resolve this.

Thanks be to God for this day.

It's been an exceedingly busy week. I find myself once again looking back to catch up on missed reviews. My frequency has fallen to an all time low. Sometime last week I reminded myself that it is the ends that is important not the means.

This Thursday morning I attended to an assignment from my psych of personal adjustment class that had me look at the influences on my views on sexuality. Upon reviewing them I came to the realization that the process of personal inventory and character building were the biggest influence. That after the typical influences of parents, religion, media, society, etc. that in the end it was the self examination that exerted the greatest insight.

After my class I had a scheduled meeting with the professor. She didn't have a specific agenda, it was a meeting to have a one on one conversation. It was an enjoyable talk and one particular question stayed with me after the meeting. She asked "have you always been this thoughtful?" My first reaction was to resist a prideful interpretation. I don't think she was asking "have you always been this wise?" but my ego wanted to go there. I decided that she must have meant "have you always been this aware of the thought life." I also thought that she might be asking "are you certain that you have the temperament to be a counselor?" I should have sought clarification at this point. I answered with some points from my "why I want to help people" essay, about how I have always been interested in inter and intra personal dynamics since my youth. I think the right answer should have been "I had to become conscious of the thought life for the sake of sanity and sobriety, when all else failed."

Friday night we went to the Halloween festival at my middle children's school. The kids were very cute. They were Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, and the Transformer leader, Optimus Prime and the Star Wars character, Jengo Fett. We had a great feeling as being a part of the community as a family. Our local congressman was there, there was a costume contest in which my boys entered, and there was a musical act for the kids, where they sang songs about the kids in costume. I got to see a friend who recognized me from the twelve step fellowship, an old friend from high school, a parent from baseball, a parent and child in religious costume, and the teachers of my children. The kids also made attracted and exchanged friendship based on shared interest evident in their costume choices.