This morning I woke up very early with a brainstorm of thoughts.  I had to get out of bed and journal them which I've decided to move down below this review so that I can make sure and take my inventory.

We made it to mass on time this morning but not before a feud broke out between my oldest son and my wife.  He then had an outburst of defiance and threatened not to comply with our directives.  This began to escalate and I had an insecure and potentially critical moment when I almost got very angry and didn't know what to do.  I managed to stumble through it and throttle back and let his anger diffuse without over-punishing him and having a fit of rage.  He eventually did comply and only minimally expressed resentment afterward.  On the way to mass, I had to catch myself from getting anxious over the kids.  I seem to have been blessed lately with a new level of resilience there.  I was grateful for the resourcefulness to be able to systematically handle the issue with my son and the minor infractions at mass.  We had a behavior review afterward and the kids accepted there consequences so that we were able to go on and have a good day.

Today my wife and I had good communication with an especially productive discussion about how to handle their exposure to culture that we don't approve and how this affects them.  This after a Justin Bieber party for a six year old.

Today I felt like a person in recovery again and found my interest in it renewed.

I was most grateful for a sense of spiritual renewal today from mass.

Thanks be to God!

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We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us...AGH!

Acceptance - Let go of my will and accept God's, "Thy will, not mine, be done."

Gratitude - Think not of how I wish it were better but, how grateful I am that its not worse.

Humility - Admit that I need God to come into my heart and restore me to sanity.

If this does not work, apply step four.

The Twelve Step program is a set of epiphanies and a therapeutic process to  change thinking, behavior, and character.  The first three steps are a set of 9 epiphanies, 3 for each step:

Addiction is a problem rooted in a contradiction of value motives.  Each area of life function has a motive force value, e.g home - 10, relationships - 10, job - 9, car - 8, health - 10 , hobbies - 9.  Chemical use or the illicit behavior (of a compulsion) has a motivational force value also.   If used normally, it is just another 1-10 number less than these and not supersede them i.e. 7.  

Perhaps one could take a snapshot of this much like an x-ray of cancer.  

One could assign a bottom line value for the number of times it takes for the behavior to interfere with life functions and that would equal the value of the life function.  For example if drinking 3 times a month will interfere with relationships then 3 = 10.  Then determine how many times one has drank per month on average for a time leading up to the intervention.  If it were 8 times then the value would be 30 which when compared in a ratio, 30/10 would show that degree of power of the motivational force over that of the life value.

This is why the twelve step program is so effective, because it provides a motivational force power. or "Higher Power" to counter that which is driven by years of learned, compulsive behavioral motivational force power.  Human will power is limited because the force needed to overcome them is difficult to achieve.

This evening I had a re-framing of the powerlessness part of step one.  I have always seen it as physical allergy, mental obsession, and mental blank spot.  But this to me never completely seemed right as mental blank spot seems as though it might actually be under mental obsession.  I also realized that the chronic progression isn't adequately included in that model.  Therefore I think it should be physical allergy, mental obsession, chronic progression.

Tonight I think I should admit that I am thinking about myself most of the time.  I'm not sure why I need to right about this, perhaps because I have not scrutinized it carefully enough.

This morning we had my son's cousin over having spent the night.  They were immediately playing video games.  I wasn't sure that I should stop them but I did anyway, though I couldn't bring to mind why.

At breakfast I was hesitant to pray with them but I brought it up anyway.  I asked my son's if they had said morning prayers, surprisingly they both said yes.  I didn't believe them but I felt that it would be somehow disrespectful to dispute this.  Looking back I realize that I was self conscious about it because their cousin was here and I had been having concerns about the values he expresses with my sons.

The issues I saw were concerning his interests in TV shows and video games.  The video games are too much, that's simple enough.  But, the TV shows required a little more thought.  I realize now that I have been screening these shows in my home as they reinforce attitudes that are crass, irreverent, and disrespectful.

I got to go to a meeting tonight.

Thanks be to God.

This morning I thought of the nature of mental disorder as a conflict of the motives.  Especially when it comes to addictions, obsessions, and compulsions.  I thought that when the value ratio is chaotic that behavior becomes dysfunctional.

In reading Hume today I thought about how the main physical law of this universe is cause and effect.

This morning I thought of addcition as a power struggle, that is, a battle of motives.  In each case motives in the psyche struggle to achieve priority.  Each motive has a desire value that is increased or decreased according to learned knowledge, abstract perception, and sensational experience.  When the ratio is tipped in favor of the motive then it gains power to drive behavior.  This is counter balanced by the inhibition of the opposite or cautious motive.  In the case of addiction, the euphoria motive suddenly gains so much desire value that the ratio collapses completely and drives the behavior blindly.

This morning while trying to study, my mind was preoccupied wtih the idea of solving human problems by addressing the general to the specific.  I was thinking about this because my dad and I were talking about addressing problems with dog behavior yesterday.  We talked about how Cesar Milan describes dog owners as attributing dog behavior problems to individual personality first, breed second, and species third.  This again lead me to a connection in treating human behavior.  We should address problems at the human level first, the cultural(?) level second, and the personal level third.

This morning during prayer, I received three notable insights:

1. I thought of communion with God as my primary action before formative petition
2. I began to "feel" an attitude of love and forgiveness toward my wife
3. I thought of a better way to structure my prayers to make them more practical and less pedantic

At the breakfast table I suddenly felt assaulted when each kid seemed to do something wrong all at once: one kid started flinging water from his hands instead of using a towel, another was picking her chair with a fork, another left the table without finishing, another was speaking and spitting food, another was pushing on my chair to get by. I caught myself frenetically griping at them.  I had to catch it quick.  I settled them and we said a good morning prayer instead of grace.

Its a good thing that

This morning I took the kids to the park early before it got hot.  I took them because I planned to take them when I had a sense of direction earlier this week.  But this morning I felt tired, unmotivated, and not sure if it was necessary or beneficial.  I threw the baseball with them each in an unplanned and unstructured way.  I didn't have a great sense of having accomplished a proper workout but I was glad to have pressed myself through it.

Back at home I was exceptionally tired and took a nap.  I realized that I actually felt kind of ill.  I talked to my son who is getting over his stomach bug and I wondered out loud if I had it.  Then I wondered if this is the long term remnants of a lifetime of drinking and drugging.  If this was one of those "phantom hangovers" that I used to have.

After my nap I got a good amount of housekeeping done.   I also picked up a coaching book that I have during an interlude and I finally committed to memory the necessary basic framework of a good practice session.  I also listened to a little to the inspirational preacher that has been giving me a positive outlook lately.