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.

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. I had the option of writing about this and turning it in as my weekly journal. As I reviewed all the influences my report became a simple recollection of the past, I imagined that my experience was the same as many people: parents, church, society shaped my early inhibitions with emotional coercions of shame and guilt, then the media informed me at an early age about more permissive attitudes and I became caught up in the sexual revolution. My views progressed incrementally from openness, to fantasy, to desires, to indulgence, to excess, and to the propagation of the sexualized attitudes socially. Eventually I found myself in a lifelong struggle to indulge, manage, and moderate my sexual drives, on both a physical and relationship level. My conception of sex was a powerful natural drive that had to be sated otherwise I would go crazy. I also believed that I was born with a level of sex drive that was greater than most as a characteristic of my race.

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."

Today I thought about how men's ;problems are in the excesses. When men's "basic instincts exceed their proper function." overreaction, excitement, etc.

I thought about making a list of age appropriate behaviors to facilitate the passage od my children through their developmental stages.

I thought about how the 12 step inventory helped me to achieve self control of the basic drives in small increments to add up to a large effect.