Posts Tagged ‘12 Steps Blog’

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. – Lao Tzu

Posted: May 24, 2011 in Uncategorized
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What a long, long weekend.

Sobriety is filled with firsts. Whenever I’ve begun to feel comfortable and well rounded in this program, seems like I always find a new challenge to face, a new layer of the onion to peel and learn somehow to yet again grow a bit. I’m a VP of Sales for a technology company that sells to amongst other clients, restaurants. The National Restaurant Association has a huge event in Chicago every year and my boss signed me up to go this year and I didn’t think twice about going, in fact I was quite excited, as I’ve always done inside sales, and never in my career ever traveled to do any kind of sales at all.

How’s the saying go, wear your sobriety like a loose shirt, but don’t forget to put the shirt on every morning. Well, for some reason, I forgot to put the shirt on. Or I was just careless or didn’t think it through, I’m really not sure. I asked a friend of mine who I’ve known in Chicago for over 20 years, who grew up with me in Atlanta and whom I began my drinking and drugging career with back in middle school. Why the thought didn’t occur to me that this might be careless, hell, even dangerous is beyond me. I really just didn’t think it through.

I woke up early to get to Chicago and after landing, walking the convention all day I get back to his place, where he’d left a key, and try to go to sleep. After about an hour, he comes in there, into the room I’m sleeping, and drunk as hell, shakes me until I wake up, all with the best intentions, but just 100% oblivious as to what waking up to an obnoxious drunk idiot might be like to a recovered alcoholic. I was already irritated he failed to mention his huge white lab, as I’m allergic to dogs, but good lord, to wake me up in the middle of the night drunk off your ass, to reminisce, I mean seriously? It went downhill from there.

I didn’t get back to sleep till 4 am, I walked the convention the whole next day, when I returned he was drinking red wine. I love the guy, but I don’t hang out with drunk people for a reason. I’m just a different person than I used to be.

What’s more was the insight into my personality changes he noted. He told me, “As soon as I saw you, I could tell your confidence was shaken.” I am still not sure how to take this. The thing is for 20 years I had a false bravado, an alcoholic fueled, megalomania that was delusional, dangerous, and was leading me to death. Perhaps humility is what he saw and just misinterpreted it. I don’t really know. I don’t really care. As the quote above says, deep in the center of my being I know who I am and what I want, and I have the answer, and it is to be a good humble human being, not a self assured, ego driven nut-job that I used to be. I’m much more confident now in my heart of hearts than I ever was before, whether that shows on my face or not.

I know what he means. He’s referring to the kind of confidence, a con man uses to pull his cons. Or a womanizer uses to seduce. He’s referring to a certain arrogance that actually does work in this world most of the time, but one that I don’t and prefer not to emit anymore. I can still sell good ideas I believe in, and I can still convey good ideas, I need not beam a ray of greater than thou bullshit to accomplish the missions I choose to embark on now. I might lose a few girls, or a few accounts, or be thought of as humble or weak from time to time by not emitting that King of the World egotistical confidence game I used to carry around with me so effectively, but in my heart of hearts I knew that person was a fraud. I was never that confident, it was always a lie. An egomaniac with an inferiority complex we call it. How true, and how sad. I didn’t fight because I was a bad ass, I fought because I was scared. Mark Twain said “Never fight a little man, he will kill you.” I carried around an aire of superiority while I was drinking and drugging that some recognized and even loved, but that ultimately drove me to drinking alone, friendless, hopeless, dying in a rat infested shack all by myself. I may not be that same confident man, but I am a better man for it, no doubt.

And it’s no great loss that someone still suffering in the throes of addiction, and ultimately denial, would recognize my lost ego, and point that out as a blatant negative change, and then lecture me on how it’s all about a relationship with God and a higher power, drunk and high, at 3 am, walking in an alleyway in Chicago, while all I wanted to do was rest. In fact, I should have expected it, and I should have prepared better for it. Fortunately I have a program of recovery. I have a sponsor, who has a sponsor, and even after the meeting at the Mustard Seed AA Clubhouse in Chicago turned out to be another fiasco of the trip, I had a network of men I could call in Atlanta and talk to and thankfully, relate to. I didn’t need a drunks approval, or assessment of my “confidence”. I have a network of men in Atlanta that know how much I’ve been through, how much I’ve changed, and know that there’s no going back to that old ego driven JB but that the way to self esteem is doing esteem-able things, and if at 4.5 years sober that’s still not as high as it was when artificially amped up by drugs and alcohol, well then you just need to keep on working on it. So I don’t have the woman of my dreams yet, or all the tea in China, or the BMW M3, I still have good friends and family that love and care for me, that know I’m way better off here and now than when I was back there killing my self slow.

Still it was good to land back in Atlanta and get to a meeting. I went straight to 8111 and caught the 10 pm meeting, and I felt like I’d touched home base. Confidence shaken, lol, yeah, well, I learned a few things this weekend. 1) Don’t stay with friends who still drink like fish 2) Know where the good meetings are  3) don’t park next to the anthills at hartsfield and 4) get your own rental car in strange cities. I am an alcoholic, and I can’t be dependent on other people to get to meetings when I’m elsewhere, period the end.

Oh I did think of an awesome APP we should develop though, “CLOSEST AA MEETING” using your smart phones GPS ,geo locate you and timestamp to find closest applicable AA meeting. I can’t believe it’s not already on the market?!! Who wants to partner on this, I kind of have my hands full. It’s good to be home, great to be sober, and good to know just who I am, and who knows me. My name is JB Smith and I’m an alcoholic, and also… not fond of smelly people on airplanes.

-Jared Bryan Smith

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” – Oscar Wilde

Posted: April 28, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Few people really do their own thinking. As Mark Twain said, the only original thought written down was either Adam or Eve. That being said, too much deferring of your thoughts, or living by other people’s opinions can be hugely detrimental to your life, and most especially if you’re in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

It’s perplexing though, because in our program we get a sponsor. Or a teacher. They walk us through the big book. But all too often that isn’t who gives you most of your opinions. Generally it’s the person with whom you spend the most time, whether that is a lover, a friend or a sponsor, in early sobriety, you have got to remember, it is easier to be pulled down, than it is to pull someone up. Hell, I had to change sponsors my first week because I didn’t like being yelled at. Also, for me, the other warning signs were that he wouldn’t tell me who his higher power was. Call me superstitious but if you’re higher power is Lucifer, I don’t want to pray with you, and if you’re too ashamed to say it’s either God, Jesus or at the very least the Holy Spirit, then I clearly wasn’t working with the right person. But I stuck it out, stayed sober that week, and waited around till I got a hold of my current sponsor. He kept me relatively sober for the first few months of my sobriety and then I switched from him to a Buddhist, very laid back guy by the name of Pete, who had 18 years sober, but had drank on the way out of Katrina due to their being zero fresh water. Not sure if that story is true, he’s since died, but it sure sounded romantic.

My point is, we alcoholics are VERY VERY susceptible to the moods, serenity, and/or confusion and chaos of those around us. As the Bible says, “Iron sharpens Iron” and the opposite is true as well. “A fool returns to his folly like a dog to his vomit.” – Proverbs.  If you’re in sobriety and those around you are CLEARLY LYING, STEALING or any other OBVIOUS character defect is coming out, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THEM, they are poisonous and if at first it repels you, but then you find it ok, or justified, you are already on the slippery slope back out the door. Living a spiritual life is not an experiment, it’s not a luxury, it’s a mandatory way of life, and if someone you know is holding your hand, whispering sweet things in your ear, but quite obviously leading you down a shady road, get the fuck away from them. Living dishonestly is the path to ruin, it’s the soft subtle sell to a drink, and for us to drink is to die.

Pick your friends wisely, your lovers more wisely, your sponsor with care, and if people do consistently lie, cheat and steal, even just to other people, and not you, it doesn’t fucking matter, get the fuck away from them before their shit becomes your shit, and you end up right fucking back where you came from. Shaking, in pain, miserable, confused, with the obsession to drink and drug on you like it never left, and more so, if the obsession to drink and drug hasn’t left, after 6 months or so, look at your spiritual life. Generally it’s as obvious as the first principle of the first step. Are you being honest with everyone, including yourself and God?

If that question makes you feel uncomfortable, than get to work, getting rid of the bad in your life, and ask those that love you for help in doing so. You’ve never burned a bridge in AA, everybody is here to help you, but it’s for those who want the help not for those who need it. You merely need to ask. Ask those with ten plus years of solid sobriety, who work good and decent jobs, and always have a smile on their faces, “What am I doing wrong?” “How do I get to where you are?” “How do I become happy in AA?” It can be done, and it starts with being HONEST.

It is both good and bad that we morph into those we spend most of our time with. Look around you and ask yourself, are they positive bright people? If I had children would I want them to be around these people? Are they kind, passive, peace loving, God fearing? Would they turn the other cheek, could I leave a pile of money in the room and walk away without fear they would take it and run? Would they lie to me? Do they lie to me regularly? Do they lie to others regularly? These things sound basic, but all too often people become accustom to the worst of behavior patterns, and having suffered through them so long, begin to see them as normal.

Find good people to spend your time with, even if uncomfortable at first. Search your soul for truth and ask yourself and God the hard questions? Are the people I spend most of my time with good at heart, or are they bad for my soul, God please help me to see the truth in all things. If your aim is to seek truth, you will always be doing the will of God, and if you truly seek God’s will, I’ve always found he makes it easy for you to see the obvious.

-Jared Bryan Smith

Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” – All Women Are Like That

Posted: April 16, 2011 in Uncategorized
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It was fitting that after a long day worrying over a woman, over yet another situation I have absolutely zero control of, a friend of mine called and offered me tickets to an Opera performance of Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” which translated means, “All women are like that”, I’m told but upon researching a little deeper that even that translation is off a bit, and actually it translates “Thus do they all”. One of the more memorable lines “by 15 a girl should know where the Devil hides his tail.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cos%C3%AC_fan_tutte

Mozart was 33 years old when it was released, and he died at 34 it seems. With over 600 works. I’m 33 and I have roughly 3. lol… but also cable television, and average lifespans are prolly 50+ year now, but I digress. It’s also fascinating to me that this seemingly innocent, portrayal of life, was banned in Vienna, played briefly in London in 1812 and then didn’t resurface until after World War 2. I guess calling women loose was risque even back then, lol. I love reading about human beings shunning their most genius, ridiculing their best, not understanding, being threatened by things that are new, and most usually attacking all that is really truly honest.

The truth cuts deep, and the quote “I write fiction so I can tell the truth” rings a bell when thinking this through. But basically Mozart shows how two fiances of two men are turned from love within 24 hours, to new lovers, and that even so, those two lovers should remain true and marry them anyway, because basically they are but human beings, which we all are, and that “All Women Are Like That.” They are easily swayed, but love and marry them anyway, because you know you love them no matter what, otherwise you wouldn’t be so hurt. I loved watching the dialog and the wisdom of these words written by a man my age, in 1790, and how true the ring to this day for me.

Mozart must have been cheated on, he must have lost a woman to another man in his life to have written such a piece of work. I bet that man ridiculed his body of work too, all 600 works of it, lol. Fuck em. Everybody’s a critic. I was recently, in anonymous hate mail a couple of months back, called a “whiney psychopath” and it cut to the bone. Again, like most obsessive alcoholics, I’m childish oversensitive and grandiose, so I took it… not well. It made me think of this blog, and the book, losing my parents, and sharing about all this pain, and whether or not it does all come off as whiney or psychopathic, and shit, it may, as a friend of mine says everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I guess for me, I’m trying to do something new here with my writing. I’m trying to be brutally honest, about my thoughts, about my obsessions, about my modern life in general, because I want it as an accurate history. All of us will be dead in 100 years, but with the Internet, its conceivable that this writing will still be here, and people may want to know what it was like to live as a recovered alcoholic, in 2011, or whenever, it’s worth being honest I believe.

I know that it bleeds of vulnerability, that it drips of weakness in places, or drowns you in the minutia of an obsessive, recovered alcoholic but FUCK, its my thoughts, its me, and were I to write it more strongly, or more proud, it would be a lie, it would be false, it would be the opposite of true. I may have come off as a whiney psycho path, but I don’t believe I could have written things any other way. The point is to chronicle the pain, to grow from these learning experiences. This journey of sobriety is a marathon not a sprint, and if I don’t learn from these experiences I’m bound to repeat them. Unfortunately I don’t live in a bubble or a vacuum, and most of my pain comes from interacting with other human beings, who may not appreciate being written about, or who may misunderstand what I’m saying. Mozart’s Opera was obviously misunderstood for hundreds of years, and I am no genius, just a recovering alcoholic trying to learn from his mistakes, of which their are many. I know in my heart though that I didn’t mean anyone any pain and that I’ve been truthful in all my dealings, and that is a huge step up from the old JB who would have manipulated, lied and angled to get his way. So though I’m still a work in progress, far from perfection, I know my heart is good, I mean well, and though the blog may be personal, even though written in anonymity, these events will pass quickly, as the personal complications are all temporary, whereas the lessons learned and derived when looked back over can be permanent and hopefully shared and become wisdom for more than just my selfish ass, or whomever else they affect right this second, they can last longer than the situation, hell eternal really, you never can tell. Mozart’s best stuff is only now being played on a regular basis, hundreds of years later, and nobody has a fucking clue who the original woman who motivated him or cursed him as it were ever really was. And also, hell, he was using his real name, lol, this freaking blog is anonymous!

So yeah, somehow these thoughts dominated my mind as I was watching the Opera last night, that I never intended on upsetting anyone with my writing, ever, but that no matter what, I must remain true, continue to write, and be honest, and just know in my heart that I mean well, that I am ultimately a good man, and that if it’s misinterpreted, or critiqued by people whom don’t like me for whatever reasons, all I can do is keep on keeping on, staying sober no matter what.

Mozart was a mason too, I found out, who knew? I bet he wishes he had the word “fuck” to throw around, that would have changed an Act or two I assure you. lol…

Sooo in closing; here’s another poem pulled from the wreckage of my now distant past:

Careless Self

Quit ripping my heart out,

     Stop feasting on my flesh.

Ignorant of the pain I doubt,

     Every twinge, or twitch or breath.

Strikes horror through my soul,

     Nervous system is nervous again,

Loving you takes a toll.

     The dank of folly, the essence of sin.

Lust, camouflaged duality,

     We’re not even kind to ourselves.

Separate motives, same reality.

     Truth unopened books on shelves.

– Jared Bryan Smith

“Ego Rape” – Original Jared Bryan Smith Poetry, April 8th, 2011

Posted: April 8, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Ego Rape

Land soft again into my arms,

Deny the duplicity, deception of charms.

Awaken the truth, the light and the way,

Set aside the pettiness, and seize the dying day.

Time slides by in endless waves,

Yesterdays tombs, flooded crypts and caves.

Regrets forever sealed, mistakes piled on tragedies,

Against the grain we raged, self inflicted maladies.

Surrender all your silliness, seek your heart for truth,

Beg your God for clarity, await your thoughts to soothe.

Crash delicate upon loves shore,

Humility beckoned you here.

Love is its own just sacred war,

Where victory grips you like fear.

Faithfully seek your soul for honesty,

The rarest form of being.

Cry foul the common brutality,

For EGO rapes us of seeing.

-Jared Bryan Smith

For more original poetry please read my book via books4free.com, smashwords or of course the hard cover hard back via the amazon link below:

Thanks for the support and if you like the book please leave a review on amazon AND smashwords as Indie publishing lives and dies by grassroots support and we appreciate all the word of mouth we get!!

Amazon Mysteries Abound!!

Posted: October 21, 2010 in Uncategorized
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Wow, the print on demand arrangement still being pondered, as I wonder why they would claim on my splash page on Amazon that there are only 3 copies left, and to order soon, they throw fuel on the fire with yet another jaw dropper. The book is now for sale, not at the 24.95 I set the price at months ago, but for 17.96.

This is well below their wholesale cost on the entire book, and though I get it, would have been nice to have received an email from the publisher, Books4free.com, but I’m sure he’s too busy golfing, fishing or dating bipoloar women to keep me posted… He swears he received nothing, but who knows.

The point is that Amazon owns his ass and they can set the price wherever they like, whenever they like, and do not have any need to keep him or the author informed. Fortunately books4free.com assures us that it’s actually a good thing for our customers, that the price is down, and though it eats into Amazon costs, we will receive the same pay out per book even though its below cost.

That is where I call bullshit. What lightning source should tell have told us is that most likely Amazon has bought a bulk of the book, since it’s selling well, and hence, gotten that bulk for a cheaper cost, probably saving something like 7 or 8 bucks per book. Which basically means Lightning Source is overcharging books4free.com and myself, something in the neighborhood of 10 bucks a book as there has only been about 20 or so sold, and I bet that’s the cut off for Amazon to actually stock some books. I bet at 100 there is another bulk pricing break.

It would really be nice to be privy to all this information going in, but alas, we are not, and learning these ropes as we go along.

In the meantime, I guess we should just be grateful that the cost is done to 17.96 per book, 7 dollars cheaper than the list price we set, and go ahead and advertise on Facebook and wherever that it’s on sale! Better than a 7 dollar increase I suppose.

Now if said publisher would just stop dating crazy women, maybe he would have the time to get me on some radio and television shows like a proper publisher! Some habits die harder than others I suppose.

-Jared Bryan Smith

Books4free.com – Hippopotamus Sea; My Viral Sobriety by Jared Bryan Smith

Posted: October 11, 2010 in Uncategorized
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Well the book launched yesterday! I was very excited as I didn’t realize it was basically automatic from the acceptance of the proof with Lightning Source. I was putting pressure on my graphics designer/web designer who was basically stalling and putting it right back on me, which drove me a little batty. So I was thinking books4free was going to have to call LSI, which is always a pain in the ass, and find out how to connect LSI and Amazon together. Thankfully it was all done automatically.

Hippopotamus Sea; My Viral Sobriety, written by me, Jared Bryan Smith, 2.5 years in the making, and it finally launches on 10-10-10, a sheer coincidence. Chronicling a 17 year drug and drinking binge, sobriety,  the 12 Steps of AA in their modern workings, haha, as well as, of course, the contraction of Hepatitis C, the insane costs of the treatment without insurance, the charity given by Roche, and the grueling Interferon treatment itself, it’s certainly a book anyone in recovery would appreciate.

It doesn’t sugar coat much, and cuss words are modern, and used liberally. Anyone who has Hep C, isn’t going to be offended I suspect, but it may not penetrate the staunch religious aspects of AA as some are very averse to cursing. My God doesn’t speak English exclusively so he could care less how many times I drop the F bomb. I didn’t cross the GD line though, haha. It’s a good book, regardless of anyone’s delicate sensitivities. I couldn’t write honestly and not cuss a little.

So as of yesterday my best ranking was in the top 32000 on Amazon, but today, Monday, we’ve drifted back to about 75k, so my brother just bought 3 copies to test this theory, see what happens. Very strange as a publisher books4free can’t just go and look up exactly how many copies they’ve sold, but I guess they probably just haven’t figured that out yet. I suppose books4free should call LSI regardless just to see how to do that.

I’m glad the book is up though. I used a technical editor, and in all honesty it wouldn’t shock me if later on down the road I ended up getting an editor specifically attuned to working on autobiographies, to get rid of some of the name dropping, probably crop some pages, but at this stage, it’s the very best I could do with the tools, resources, and time I had at hand. Especially the money. I would have saved thousands going through Lulu.com or any Vanity Publishing Press out there, but we wanted to use my book to launch books4free.com. We’ll see how that all plays out moving forward  I suppose.

So go take a look please, if you haven’t already!

http://www.books4free.com

-Jared Bryan Smith