This morning we had a  successful garage sale.  It was not only successful because we made some much needed extra funds, and not because we cleaned out a lot of clutter, but mainly because my wife and I never got into an argument.  I was worried at times because I had to take breaks and rest while she stayed out there.  But I took care of the boys and my mom had the girls and after the sale was done, I did the cleanup.

I was grateful for some help from my parents today.
I was grateful for the focus and energy to get things done.
I was grateful that I got to go to a meeting tonight.

Thanks be to God.

This Friday morning I had another period where I fell asleep very unexpectedly after feeding and getting the kids off to camp.  Fortunately it did not last long and my wife had given me a honey-do list which helped me get out and about.  This was especially good because I felt foggy and aimless until them.

I spent some time contemplating Hume's Enquiry of human understanding and his skeptical solution.  I have found studying this material to be deeply disturbing because it has caused me to examine the foundation of my beliefs too closely.  This gives me a grave sense of uncertainty even though I trust that in the end they will be stronger for it.  I have had to give extra consideration in my morning prayers for protection from cynical and self-centered skepticism and doubt.  One early unexpected benefit has been a better understanding of the need to pray for power to resist his error.  Thankfully in the summation today I read Hume's own reservations about excessive doubts and the futility of them.  I don't know what my final syllogism will be but I sense a great truth to come.

I had some financial fear over our shortfall this month.  This was another thought on my mind for which I had to give special consideration in prayer today. My wife and I had a productive discussion in which she helped me see that we will recover in a couple of weeks.

My wife was blessed with a little extra work today.  This meant that I had to do some extra running around for the kids and taking my son to therapy. My oldest had a bit of a meltdown in which I almost lost my cool and was temporarily confused about how to handle it.  Thankfully in the midst of dinner prep, attending to the girls, and returning to pick up my other son, I was able to sort out his exact wrongs and address it in an appropriate manner without being too heavy handed or too permissive.  He reluctantly complied and we were able to turn it around and have a good evening.

Once again we as a family watched the news reports about the famine in Somalia.  I believe that my children are really taking this to heart and seeing how blessed they are.  I know I am.

I got to play a new game of baseball target throwing with the boys today.  This helped me coax them into doing their practice drills.ssss

My wife and I worked together on preparation for a garage sale tomorrow.  Afterward she pointed out that we were able to get through it without arguing.  Lately I have begun to think that the our problematic interactions may be getting better.  I have been catching the times when I treat her poorly based on the baggage of the past.  I am also finding a lot more resilience against reacting to behavior that I don't like.  This seems synchronous to the paragraph I read from the twelve and twelve today about how we have to quit living by out selfish demands.

Thanks be to God for this day.

This morning I woke up at way too early so I decided to read the Online Daily Reflections.  When I went to the website I saw that it was no longer being published.

I thought about doing a daily reflection of my own, not for publication but for personal growth and sharing with sponsees.  I also don't mean my personal reflections but the part of selecting from the book.  The problem with this is the copyright issue.  But I guess if it is not an open website then it doesn't apply.

This month is step 7 month so I went to the chapter in the Twelve and Twelve and started at the end of the chapter and worked my way back in three paragraph size chunks back to what would be the reading for the 28th.  I read about humility as an act of the will.  this got me thinking about how we don't always have to be forced into humility by a failure but can grow in self awareness and catch our selves falling into self-centered fear before we act and ask God to restore us to sanity.

It kind of worked out that way for me this day as I fell into a deep crash after this morning's early rise.  I woke up in a sense of despair that I had fallen too far behind in the day to be productive.  But thankfully I was able to turn my attitude around and get a lot done both in homework and house work.

The kids got to go to the zoo at their camp today and had a lot to talk about.  My wife was working in the evening so I had to make dinner for the kids.  During this time I get a little overwhelmed and have to watch myself from barking at them too much.  During our dinner we watched a report on the evening news about the children starving in Somalia and their parents carrying them up to a hundred miles to aid camps.  We were able to discuss this and be grateful for what we have.

Thanks be to God.

Today I studied most of the morning and then took a test.  I also pulled out my fishing boat to clean and prepare it for sale.  I have regret and mixed feelings about selling it but we are in a financial shortage right now and I think that I must let it go.  I experienced uncertainty and fear at times but not too much anxiety.  Each time that I thought about it, I felt like I could ascertain God's will for me in this by either generating the shortfall by the end of the week or accepting the loss for now with trust that when the time is right that we will receive another boat.  I recognize now that what I fear is a permanent loss which is me depending on the limits of my scope of vision.  Not only that but we can't even afford to take fishing or boating trips and the maintenance that goes with them.

I thought some more about the culture of sobriety today.  I thought about the fact that I've always known that group support is important, but in discovering the human characteristic of proficiency, accomplishment, an development, through modeling, I have gained a much livelier sense of value for it.  I found myself contemplating and anticipating sharing this idea in a new perspective.

I was grateful to pass my test.

I was grateful to get to talk to a friend about sobriety.

I was grateful to watch baseball highlights with my sons.

I was grateful to spend time with my daughters riding their bikes.

I was grateful talking to my wife about philosophical ideals.

Thanks be to God for this day.

This morning I fell into chaotic thinking when I woke up.  I realized that my thoughts were moving through various issues in my life, some current, some past, some future, and some relevant and some not.  I caught myself in this and recognized that fear had set in.  I didn't have the time or mental faculties to pray through all the particulars, but I made an effort none the less and got my thinking set aright.  Thanks be to God..

In my studies today I encountered two examples of the idea that experiential modeling is the most lively form of motivational force in behavioral learning.  One in the case of the Japanese Macaques and the other in Hume's Enquiry on Human Understanding.  The concept suddenly became very lively for me and I associated it with the phenomenon of the spiritual experience and the culture of sobriety.

I was grateful to get to go to a meeting tonight.

Thanks be to God for this day.

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.