The above is a slogan quoted in AA and refers to attending meetings.
The idea behind the slogan is that it is important to show up for meetings and adding the ‘Suit up’ part emphasizes having a level of discipline, commitment and respect for others by getting ready and attending a meeting with the right attitude. It also emphasizes honoring others by dressing up to show respect for them.
All this process is healthy and good for a recovering alcoholic.
This is a story from childhood that involves a simple mistake that led to a lifelong regret.
My parents were good friends with another couple, the Drabicks. The Drabick’s had a cottage up north in Algonquin Park north of where we lived in Ontario, Canada.
The Drabicks invited our family to join their family for a vacation up at their cottage.
So we loaded up our stuff into our car, picked up a bunch of groceries and followed them up to their cottage and had an enjoyable time, except for one simple mistake…
We were out on their boat collecting minnows with a net to use as bait. The minnows were collected after hours of collecting and put in a metal container that hung from the boat. The minnows were being kept alive in this container until they would be used for fishing.
Somehow I touch something or moved a lever, or something and the minnows escaped causing us to have to start over catching the minnows. I felt so bad that I made everyone work so hard and then have to start over. They forgave me – a simple mistake – but I never forgave myself.
A funny thing happened a couple of years ago.My brother and I were talking at our niece’s wedding and that incident somehow came up in conversation. I think we were talking about regrets. My brother mentioned that he had made that mistake of releasing the minnows. I quickly corrected him and told him I had done it, not him.
‘Turns out, we both had been living with this regret. We both thought we had done the mistake and had lived with the regret all those years.
At this point I have to be honest, either I did it or I somehow I vicariously covered for my brother.
The truth is that there never was any evidence that either of us did it. They asked if anyone moved the lever and I said I thought I may have done so.
How crazy to think we both held on to that regret for so many years and it wasn’t even anything worth regretting…
When I was 10 years old my father asked me and my brother if we wanted to take music lessons. I had taken piano lessons at 7 in elementary school. After piano lessons for one year at school I had to go up in front of a large audience and play Frere Jacques which was nerve racking but somehow I managed. After that year I lost interest in playing piano and stopped taking lessons.
In the meantime I got interested in playing the drums. My brother wanted to play the guitar but he was told he was too young to play Spanish guitar and that he would have to take Hawaiian guitar instead since his fingers would not be strong enough. He hated taking Hawaiian guitar and quit after a year. He looks back now and wishes he had stuck with it.
I took drum lessons but the method I took was military style and only with a snare drum, not a whole drum set. It seemed like I was never going to learn to play the styles of music I wanted to.
After a couple of years of this my father decided one day that he was going to buy me a drum set, so he did. We took the set to my drum teacher and my father asked him to tune them up. My teacher didn’t teach modern styles of playing and basically with the fact that I seemed to want to go a different direction I stopped taking lessons from him.
Then I found a different teacher that taught more modern styles on a drum set and I started taking lessons from him. It still wasn’t rock and roll but at least it broadened my knowledge and coordination on a drum set.
Meanwhile my new next door neighbor Rick, who was a couple of years older than me, decided we should form a band. I do not remember the details of how it all happened. He knew a couple of guys that wanted to join us.
We built a stage and painted the basement wall behind the stage at my house and set up the drums there. He knew Steve that played organ and Steve knew Brent who sang. Brent lived on my street for a few years previously so we already knew each other.
By a miracle I found out a couple of my grade 8 fellow students played guitar and bass respectively. We formed a band with Steve on organ, John G. on guitar, John A. on bass, and me on drums and called the band The Shadows of Time. Later we thought the name was too long and changed it to The Grape. Personally, I never like the name change…
In another post I will elaborate on how I found out about my schoolmates, or better said, how they discovered that I played drums and were eager to come over after school and see if we could play together.
We stayed together for the most part for about 3 years from grade 8 to grade 10 but finally broke up over issues with the band leader… Steve and I tried to form another band but it fell apart as the new bass player and new singer needed to get jobs to pay their bills and things were not coming together fast enough in the band.
In another post I will tell of my adventures with another band, namely 2125 AD that I was part of in Montreal, Canada.
At one point I was going to be part of another band in Argentina and I will tell that story in another post…
One of my first jobs was working for the corner fabric store, ‘Passmores.’ My job was to go each morning before school and lower the awnings so the sun would not shine in on the fabrics displayed in the store front windows. The sunlight would cause the colours to fade. I would also go in on Saturday mornings and clean the storeroom and restock the paper bags and supplies needed at the checkout counter.
Another job I had was helping my father by sanding cars. We had to sand the paint on the cars before being able to repaint them. My father paid me well for doing this. Over time my enthusiasm waned and I was not doing a very thorough job so my father had to chide me and sometimes I had to redo parts of the car that I passed over too quickly.
Once I took guitar lessons I started teaching guitar to new students and worked myself up to teaching 12 hours per week. I would teach Wednesday nights after school and all day Saturday. I made $1.00 per half hour lesson I taught which at the time was reasonable…
Before all this I did chores around the house and would get 25 cents a week allowance. With my 25 cents I would usually get a Crispy Crunch chocolate bar and a 16 ox. Pepsi from the local variety store.
One of my favourite themes for books and movies involves a dystopia.
Definition: “…an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.”
It is not the suffering I enjoy about this theme. For me it is the futuristic setting. I get a glimpse into the future.
I also get a look at the problems the people deal with in the future and the advanced technology they employ.
The Divergent series of books that were made into movies are what I am reading right now and they follow that theme.
Maybe you have heard the expression: “Ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.”
I seem to be the epitome of an example of someone whom never seems to learn certain lessons.
It believe that I have come to learn and embrace certain truths. This includes facing painful truths about myself – my character defects.
What occurs to me, however is that I struggle to learn certain principles of behavior that are ingrained in me since a child. I think these behaviors are essentially bad habits but require conscious thought.
When I went to Taiwan with my family our intention was to be missionaries in China. The plan was to land in Taipei, Taiwan where we could get some orientation and prepare for going into China.
We had booked our flights through a travel agent (this was in August 2000 before most used online bookings) and arranged to go to Taiwan, on to Hong Kong, and return trip to Texas. We got our visitor visas for Taiwan as well.
We went to Taiwan and stayed with missionary friends in Taipei and soon realized we might tale trips into China but actually living there was not going to happen right away. We took Chinese lessons and took some time to get used to the climate and the culture.
Once we decided we were going to stay in Taiwan we went to Hsinchu and fell in love with it. We managed to get out own apartment in Hsinchu which is about an hour drive from Taipei.
It soon became necessary for me to get either a missionary visa or a work permit in order for us to remain in Taiwan. I managed to get an offer of employment as an English teacher but I needed to leave the country and come back in with a different visa.
To get a different visa we proceeded to use out pre booked flight to Hong Kong. At the time Hong Kong was still independent of China and the infrastructure had a lot of British influence such as trams for downtown travel and fancy busses to the airport.
When we were finished in Hong Kong and went to board our return flight to Taipei we found out we did not have a flight booked! Apparently, our itinerary was Texas-Taipei-Hong Kong-Texas. Yikes!
We had to get a flight back to Taipei and pay cash at the airport. The good news is that we could get the money from the ATM machine in the airport. It became obvious that our booked flight from Hong Kong back to Texas was never going to get used, unfortunately. We were just relieved that we could get back to Taiwan that day…
Some of you may be familiar with the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the
Twelve Step Programs
Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.
(For more history and the more complete versions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer)
Here I present a variation:
I oftentimes need to remind myself that I am not in control. In Recovery CBT training I learned that I cannot control feelings and sensations but I can control thoughts and impulses.
What that means is that I may feel a certain way and want to react in anger or throw a temper tantrum, or whatever. That is an impulse and I can control that if I wish to.
I can also control what I think of a situation.
Something that I have struggled with my whole life is remembering names, especially of people I meet.
This past couple of years I have made an effort to remember names and three things have helped me:
1) One thing that really helped me start remembering names is deciding I have been living a lie – I do not have any more difficulty remembering names than the next person. Believing that about myself caused me to not even try.
2) The second thing that helped me remember names was repetition out loud. I would ask someone their name and repeat the name in our conversation that follows. By saying their name out loud a few times it would stick with me. This method has made a huge difference.
3) This should probably be first but I came to the realization that I was honouring my new friends by remembering their names and that if I cared about them and wanted their friendship, the least I could do was remember their name…
Overall, I was no longer going to have this negative can’t do attitude. I found out I may not be the best at remembering names of people from the past but I am doing a whole lot better than I ever thought I would in the present!
I am Another concept relates to being ‘exceptional.’ I always have a big problem with this and it is part of my cognitive behavior. For some reason I think things only happen to me, or or wonder why something happened to me. It is a negative thought process, a type of sabotage as described by Dr. Low of Recovery International.
Why does the bus pass me by and not wait for me to cross the street? The bus driver didn’t ignore my attempt to cross the street and get to the bus stop. He has a schedule to maintain and passengers on board that want to get to their destinations on schedule. He can’t wait for someone like me that is behind schedule and not standing at the bus stop waiting for him to arrive…
This is an example of my thought process.